THE 



CROSS 



Selections From Various Jluthors. 



By MRS. H. E. HENDERSON. 



1 



V 



m 




CHICAGO: 

PUBLISHED AND COPYRIGHTED 
BY THE COMPILER. 

1875. 




Montaigne, when presenting his Compilation to the public, says : " I have gathered a nosegay of 
flowers, in which there is nothing of my own but the string which ties them." 

In the present Compilation, I have gathered some mementoes of the Cross, of which there is nothing 
of my own but the casket which holds them. H. E. H. 



LIFE AT THE CROSS. 



Wouldst thou eternal life obtain ? 

Now to the Cross repair : 
There stand and gaze and weep and pray. 
Where Jesus breathes his life away : 

Eternal life is there! 

—Buy Palmer, D. D. 



yet sinners, Christ died for us. 



SCKIPTURE. 



Without shedding of blood is 
no remission. 

— Hebrews, ix., 22. 



But God commendeth His love 
toward us, in that, while we were 



— Romans, v., 8. 



Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate. 

— Hebrews, xra., 12. 



For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust. 



— /. Peter, in., 18. 



We also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. 

— Romans, v., 11. 



Who his own self bare our 
sins in his own body on the tree, 
that we, being dead to sin, 
should live unto righteousness ; 
by whose stripes ye were healed. 

—I. Peter, n., 24. 

But God forbid that I should 
glory, save in the Cross of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the 
world is crucilied unto me, and 
I unto the world. 

— Galatians, vi., 14. 



_4_ 



THE LAST WORDS OF 
OUR SAVIOUR. 



1. Father, forgive them; for 
they know not what they do. 



2. Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise. 



3. Woman, behold thy son ! Behold thy mother ! 



4. Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ? 



5. I thirst. 



6. It is finished. 



7. Father, into Thy hands I 
commend my spirit. 



— 5 — 



THE CROSS. 

A Cross, in its simplest form, 
consists of two pieces of wood, 
one standing erect, the other 
crossing it at right angles. The 
Cross was known at an early age 
in the history of the world. Its 
use as an instrument of punish- 
ment was probably suggested by the shape so often taken by branches of trees, which seem to "have been 
the first crosses that were employed. It was customary to hang criminals on trees — arbor infelix. Cicero 
appears to consider hanging on a tree and crucifixion as of the same import ; and Seneca named the Cross 
infelix lignum, which may with no undue liberty be rendered the '■'•accursed tree." Trees are known to 
have been used as crosses, and for every kind of hanging which bore a resemblance to crucifixion. 

The sign of the Cross is found as a holy symbol among several ancient nations. Justyn Martyr says : 
" The sign of the Cross is impressed upon the whole of nature. There is hardly a handicraftsman but uses 
the figure of it among the implemen ts of his industry. It forms a part of man himself, as may be seen 
when he raises his hands in prayer." There were various kinds of Crosses, made differently by different 
nations. The Andrew's Cross was so called because tradition reports that on a Cross of this kind the 

Apostle Andrew suffered death. 
The letter )( denotes a Cross, 
and the number ten (in Roman 
numerals.) Another Cross was 
formed by putting a cross-piece 
of wood on a perpendicular one, 
so that no part of the latter may 
stand above the former. This 
form is found in the figure T. 
The Cross on which our Saviour 
was believed to have suffered 
death, was one in which the long- 
er piece of wood or pale stands 
above the shorter piece, which 
runs across it near the top — 

thus : ~|". At least this form is 

found in paintings more fre- 
quently than any other. It is 
thus represented on ancient 
monuments and coins. 

— Enc. Brit. 



— 6 — 



GETHSEMANE. 

Next, with strong cries and bitter tears, 
Thrice hallowed he that doleful ground, 

Where, trembling with mysterious fears, 
His sweat like blood-drops fell around ; 

And being in an agony, 

He prayed yet more earnestly. 

— James Montgomery . 



Another kind of suffering is included in the agony of the garden, viz., the suffering Christ bore on 
account of his love. As he recoiled in horror from the spirit and deed of his enemies, so he was oppressed 
by his anguish of concern for the men. Every sort of love connects some kind of suffering, greater or 
less desire, concern, affliction, anguish. A bliss in itself, it is even a bliss intensified by the burden it so 
willingly or even painfully bears. Thus it is that friendship, charity, motherhood, patriotism, carries each 
its burden, light or heavy, according to the nature and degree of its love, and according to the want or woe 
of its object. If the love of a human benefactor will sometimes beget anguish, what will the love of God 
do less than to create an agony ? 

— Bushnell. 



THE SHADOW OF THE 
CROSS. 

Oppressed with noon-day's scorching heat, 

To yonder Cross I flee ; 
Beneath its shelter take my seat ; 

No shade like this for me ! 

Beneath that Cross clear waters burst, 

A fountain sparkling free ; 
And there I quench my desert thirst ; 

No spring like this for me ! 

A stranger here, I pitch my tent 

Beneath this spreading tree. 
Here shall my pilgrim life be spent ; 

No home like this for me ! 

For burdened ones a resting place 

Beside that Cross I see ; 
Here I cast off my weariness; 

No rest like this for me ! 

—H. Bonar, D. D. 



MISCELLANY. 

I'll carve our passion on the bark, 

And every wounded tree 
Shall drop and bear some mystic mark 

That Jesus died for me. 

— Watts. 



Twas our sins brought him from Heaven ; 
These the cruel nails had driven. 
All His griefs for us were borne. 
By His stripes, He wrought our healing ; 
By His death, our life revealing, 
He for us the ransom paid. 

— James W. Alexander. 



The least of men that ever 
wore earth about him was a suf- 
ferer, a patient, humble, meek, 
tranquil spirit. 

— Decker. 

In one account of our Saviour's 
agony in the garden of Getlr 
semane, it is expressly said that 
an angel " appeared unto Him 
out of Heaven, strengthening 
Him." It was not the pang of 
the Mortal, but the Immortal, 
which required the presence of 
a ministering spirit sent down 
from Heaven to sustain Him. 

— Mrs. Jameson. 



The ever blessed son of God 

Went up to Calvary for me ; 
There paid my debt, there bore my load, 

In his own body, on the tree. 

— H. Bona/; D. D. 



In his death he is a sacrifice, 
satisfying for our sins ; in the 
resurrection, a conqueror ; in the 
ascension, a king; in the inter- 
cession, a high priest. 

— Luther. 

Only in the wounds of Christ 
can we learn by faith the truth 
which shall make us free. 

— Trench. 



Christ gave himself upon the 
Cross, a ransom for all. 

— Pascal. 



— 8 — 



GETHSEM ANE. 

It is night. The Lord has left 
Jerusalem with his eleven confi- 
dential followers, fully aware of 
what awaits him. In deeply 
affecting converse he descends 
with them into the dark vale of 

"" ii>m«*^p^« cypresses, where once, daring "'" " ^^^^^^^^ ^ 

the reign of the kings, the fire blazed in which the abominations of idolatry were consumed, to the honor 
of Jehovah. Here he crosses the brook Kedron, over which his royal ancestor, King David, when fleeing 
from his son Absalom, passed, barefoot and in sackcloth. The Saviour arrives at the entrance of the garden 
of G-ethsemane, at the foot of the Mount of Olives, where ancient gigantic olive trees, to this day, point out 
to the pious pilgrim the very spot where the Lord of Glory wept over the misery of the human race, and 
prayed and agonized for their redemption. On arriving at the garden gate, he said to his disciples, with 

deep emotion : " Sit ye here, while I go yonder and pray." 

* * * * * * * 

Let us follow our Saviour in the nocturnal gloom. But what awe seizes upon us! All is enveloped! 
in mysterious obscurity. The Eternal Father himself here presides. His only and supremely beloved 1 

Son appears before Him in a 

'"'"••'""" T ~ position which might melt the ™ — ■ -» 

flinty rock to pity. Again and 
again does the Son of Love cast 
himself on his Father's bosom, 
with ardent supplication; but 
his ears listen in vain for a fa- 
vorable Amen ! from on high. 
The cup of horror does not pass 
from the trembling sufferer ; on 
the contrary, its contents be- 
come every moment more bitter- 
Louder sound the complaints of 
the agonizing Saviour, more urg- 
ent becomes his prayer ; but the 
Lofty One is silent, and Heaven 
seems barred as with a thou- 
sand bolts. O, the horrors of 
that hour, when Jesus, our 
Surety, appeared at the bar of ; 
Divine Justice, and paid the , 
penalty for us sinners, that we 
might escape! 

— Krumrnacher . 



— 9 — 



0, the sweet wonders of that Cross 
On which my Saviour loved and 
died ! 

Its noblest life iny spirit draws 
From his dear wounds and bleed- 
ing side. 

— Isaac Watts. 



MISCELLANY. 

"lis to my Saviour I would live, 
To him who for my ransom died ; 

Nor could the. bowers of Eden give 
Such bliss as blossoms at his side. 

— Philip Doddridge, D. D. 

We may challenge universal 
history to furnish another in- 
stance in which any person, ex- 
piring under the tortures of a 
cruel execution, was treated with 
such derision, contempt and 
mockery, by all ranks and or- 
ders of men, and even by one, 
at least, of his fellow-sufferers. 
This was reserved for the Holy 
Jesus, " the Brightness of the 
Father's glory, and the express 
Image of His Person." 

— Scott. 



0, the bitter shame and sorrow 

That a time could ever be, 
When I let the Saviour's pity 
Plead in vain, and proudly answered, 

"All of self and none of thee !•" 
Yet he found me ; I beheld him 

Bleeding on the accursed tree ; 
Heard him pray, "Forgive them, Father !" 
And my wistful heart said faintly, 

"Some of self and some of thee !" 

Day by day his tender mercy, 

Healing, helping, full, and free, 
Sweet and strong, and ah ! so patient, 
Brought me lower, while I whispei'ed, 

" Less of self and more of thee ! " 
Higher than the highest heavens, 

Deeper than the deepest sea, 
Lord, thy love at last hath conquered ; 
Grant me now my soul's desire — 

" None of self and all of thee ! " 

— Theodore Monod. 



I gave my life for thee, 
My precious blood I shed, 

That thou might' st ransomed be, 
And quickened from the dead ; 

I gave my life for thee ; 

What hast thou given for me ? 

— H. Bonar, D. D. 



nzz 



— 10— 



Til E JUDICIAL PKO- 
CEDUKE. 



Night still reigns. The city 
of Jerusalem lies for the most 
part in profound slumber, and 
has no presentiment of the aw- 
ful events which are occurring 
within its walls. The windows, 
of the High Priest's palace are now glaring at an unwonted hour with the light of lamps and torches, 
causing events of an extraordinary nature to be inferred. Let us repair thither. An assembly of high 
rank, collected together in the spacious hall of audience, receives us. It is the council of the seventy rulers 
of Israel, with the High Priest as its president. 

Before this supreme tribunal the Saviour of mankind stands bound; for we must not limit the great 
procedure to that which is visible, but must seek it especially in the invisible world. The Lord does not 
stand at the bar as a Holy One, but as the representative of sinners. Our catalogue of crimes is displayed 
before him as if they were his own. Our sins are charged upon him, for he bears them. He is laid in the 
scales of justice witli our transgressions, for they are imputed to him. What may then have passed between 
him and the Majesty on the throne is concealed from us by the vail of eternity. One thing, however, we 

know, that he stood there in our 
place. Had he not appeared, 
that position would have been 
ours ; and woe unto us, had we 
been made responsible for our 
sins! Such a thought need no 
longer terrify us, if we belong 
to Christ's flock. What was due 
from us, he has paid. We come 
no more into condemnation, 
since he has taken our place. 
We know no longer any judge ; 
for the Judge is our friend. 
How blissful is this conscious- 
ness ! Eternal praise to him to 
whom we owe it all. 



— Krummacher. 



/ 



MONOGRAMS OF THE 
SAVIOUR'S NAME. 

Numerous monograms have 
been devised by the early Chris- 
tian artists to express, to set 
forth the sacred names of our 
■^^^^■■■■^^^^^^■J Blessed Lord ; and they have », m n^^^ ^ ^ 

' been adopted and held in great ' 

favor by the Church throughout all its ages. At the present day the monograms of our Saviour's name 
are more frequently used than any of the other Christian symbols, perhaps with the exception of the Cross. 
In almost all the various monograms the form of the Cross is introduced with more or less distinctness. 
Several forms of the monogram exist, differing slightly from each other. They are found in the catacombs, 
carved on the tombs of the early Christians, or painted in rude fresco on the walls. Constantine caused it 
to be wrought upon his banners, and carried to the battle. And in remembrance of his deliverance from 
defeat and death, he stamped the sacred monogram on his coins. All the monograms of our Saviour's 
name which have been designed by Christian artists are of Greek origin. 

— Audsley. 



CHRIST CRUCIFIED. 

When I survey the wondrous Cross 
On which the Prince of Glory died, 

My richest gain I count but loss, 
And pour contempt on all my pride. 

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, 
Save in the death of Christ, my God ; 

All the vain things that charm me most, 
I sacrifice them to His blood. 

See from His head, His hands, His feet, 
Sorrow and love flow mingled down ! 

Did e'er such love and sorrow meet, 
Or thorns compose so rich a crown ? 

His dying crimson, like a robe, 
Spreads o'er His body, like a tree ; 

Then am I dead to all the globe, 
And all the globe is dead to me. 

Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
That were a present far too small ; 

Love so amazing, so Divine, 

Demands my soul, my life, my all. 

— Isaac Watts. 



— 12 — 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 



See where man's voluntary sacrifice 
Bows his meek head, the GoJ eternal dies ! 
Fixed to the Cross His bleeding arms are 
bound, 

While copious Mercy streams from every 
wound. 

— Bp. Lowth. 



Let us, then, bear our sins to the heavenly Altnr, to he bathed and washed in the sacred 
Laver of Christ's blood. 

— George Herbert. 

The whole life of Christ was a continuous victorious conflict with Satan, and a constant obedience to 
God. This obedience completed itself in the suffering and death on the tree of the Cross, and thus blotted 
out the disobedience which the first Adam had committed on the tree of knowledge. 

—Philip Sckaf, D. D. 



Or if, at times, wild storms shall hover, 
dark, 

Still fix thy gaze upon that hallowed mark 
Which gilds the tempest with hope's bow 
divine — 

Cling to the Cross, and conquer in that 
sign. 

— B. D. Window. 



Without the Son of Man, man 

could not have been redeemed. 

* * * * 

The Paschal Lamb offered for 
us, by his death, has destroyed 
death, and by his rising again 
has restored everlasting life. 

— Alfred Barry, D. D. 



" How calm and beautiful the morn 
That gilds the sacred tomb, 

Where once the crucified was borne, 
And veiled in midnight gloom ! 

Oh, weep no moie the Saviour slain, 

The Lord is risen — He lives again.'' 



JS.T 



— 13 — 



THE SMITTEN FLOCK. 

"And there was Mary Magdelene and the 
other Mary, sitting over against the Sepul- 
chre." 

Matthew, xxvu., 61. 

These words present to us a 
picture as suggestive as it is 

I beautiful. As a mere picture, it 1 

is exquisitely lovely, so vivid is the outline and so impressive is the grouping it presents. In the back- 
ground stands the Holy City, beginning to grow still with the quiet of the approaching Sabbath ; and the 
mountains that stand around about Jerusalem, glowing in the light of the setting sun. As that light begins 
to fade away over the distant summits of the mountains of Moab, the last objects that it illumines are 
those in the foreground of the picture — the tAvo weeping Marys, as they sit with bleeding hearts, gazing on 
the closed and silent sepulchre of Jesus. As that dark and dreary night goes down over the battlements 
of the guilty city, the last forms that are visible to us are those of these loving disciples, who are sitting in 
mute and motionless agony, looking through their tears on the grave of their crucified Master. It is 1 often 
said that woman was "last at the Cross and first at the sepulchre." It should also'be remembered that she 
was likewise last at the sepulchre; that when Joseph, Nicodemus and John had all returned to their 

: 1 homes, and when the infuriate | ■ 

rabble might well be dreaded, 
even by men — that even then, 
as that awful night of the cruci- 
fixion came down upon the guilty 
city, the Marys were the last to 
leave the spot where the Lord 
lay. Hence, as a picture of 
woman's heroism and woman's 
fidelity, it is one of most exqui- 
site and touching beauty. 

But it is as suggestive as it is 
beautiful. The weeping Marys, 
gazing on the silent sepulchre, 
are but a striking type of the 
rest of the disciples on that 
mournful and memorable even- 
ing. The Shepherd had been 
smitten, and the flock was scat- 
tered. We see so clearly that 
Christ ought to have suffered 
these things before entering into 
his glory, that we can hardly 
comprehend their bewildered 



— 14 — 



and staggering state of mind at 
that period. They evidently did 
not understand either that Christ 
must die, or that his death was 
to be followed by a resurrection. 
These things had been announced 
to them, it is true, but they 
doubtless regarded them as sym- 
bolical, and could not think that 
he who had raised others from 
the grave must himself enter it. 
Hence, when he was arrested, 
mocked, scourged and crucified ; when the heavens grew dark, and the earth quaked, and all nature gave 
token of some fearful utterance of wrath, they were bewildered, and unable to see why Jesus should be the 
subject of such manifestations. They had painful misgivings that all was lost ; that he in whom they 
trusted had for some unknown reason failed in the hour of trial, and been forsaken of Grod ; and that all 
their fond dreams of the return of Israel's ancient glory, were now dashed, and they left lonely and 
orphaned, the victims of some strange delusion, or some fearful failure. They were realizing the first 
utterance of the prophet Isaiah, "We did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted," and had not 
yet reached the next, " He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities," and 
hence their souls were unutterably dark. They saw only the descending night and the unopened grave, 
and felt themselves in the valley and shadow of death, without the comforting rod and the supporting staff 

of the Shepherd. 

Hence this Sabbath eve was 
the darkest that ever fell on the 
earth, since the closing of the 
gates of Eden. 

— T. V.Moore, D.D. 



The whole fabric of Christian- 
ity stands or falls with its 
Divine-Human Founder ; and if 
it can never perish, it is because 
Christ lives, the same yesterday, 
to-day, and forever. The Per- 
son of Christ is the great central 
miracle of history, and the 
strongest evidence of Christian- 
ity. The very perfection of his 
Humanity is proof of his Divin- 
ity. The indwelling of God in 
him is the only satisfactory solu- 
tion of the problem of his amaz- 
ing character. 

—Philip Schaff, D. D. 



— 15 — 



THE BLOOD OF JESUS 

CLEANSETH FROM ALL SIN. 

The bars hindering our access 
to God were such as nothing 
but the death of Christ could 
remove. The way to God was 
filled with difficulties that none 
but Christ was able to remove ; 
and he has effectually removed them all. The way is now open, even the new and living way, consecrated 
for us by his blood. The death of Christ effectually removes the guilt of sin — washes away the pollution 
of sin, takes away the enmity of nature, satisfies all the demands of justice, has broken all the power of 
Satan, and consequently the way to God is fully opened to believers by the blood of Jesus. 

We must put the unspeakable mercy of being brought to God to the account of the death of Christ : 
no believer had ever tasted the sweetness of such a mercv if Christ had not tasted the bitterness of death 



for him. 



-John Flavel. 



THE REDEEMER ANTICIPATING REDEMPTION. 



During the process of creation the Sou was with the Father, 

Mediator between God and man. 
The Son looked with prospective 
delight to the scenes and subjects 
of his redemption work, " re- 
joicing in the habitable parts of 
his earth." 

It is a touching view of the 
Saviour's love. When he saw 
the earth undergoing the process 
whereby it was furnished as a 
habitation for man — the moun- 
tains upheaving, the valleys sub- 
siding, the vapor arising, and the 
clouds moving in the sky — he 
rejoiced in the prospect of being 
man, for behoof of the fallen on 
that emerging world, and never 
flagged in his regard until he 
had borne back many sons and 
daughters into glory. 

— Wm. Ar not. 



and already taking his place as 



— 16 — 



ALL IN JESUS CHRIST. 



Let us not be so ungrateful as 
to forget that under the Cross, 
and by the Cross alone, Christ 
has earned and gained for us a 
Heaven. His bloxl shed, his 
inconceivable sufferings, have 
accomplished all for us. His 
love is the principle of our salvation and of our entire redemption. His love is our Saviour. 

We will go then to his Cross, and seat ourselves under it. We will allow nothing in the world to 
remove us from the place where we desire to live and die. Christ has purchased us with His blood, and is 
waiting to crown us with glory and happiness. 

Having been for us, He is now with us, close to us, like a brother and friend, with whom, in the words 
of the fifty-fifth Psalm, we may " take sweet counsel together. 1 ' 

A father of the church has said: u In the Old Testament we have God for us ; in the Gospels, God 
with us ; and in the Epistles, God in us." 

— Adolphe Mo nod. 



CHRIST AS A SUF- 
FERER. 

What is the first aspect of the 
Passion, as it is seen by the eyes 
of reverence and love 1 The 
first feeling is surely, "Behold 
and see if there be any sorrow 
like unto his sorrow ?" The heart 
follows him, step by step, along 
the way of sorrows, from that 
hour when, after the hymn of 
the Last Supper, he went out 
to the solitude and darkness of 
the agony. We see him be- 
trayed and deserted by his own, 
with scarce a flash, and even 
that a mistaken one, of zeal in 
his service. We see him in- 
sulted and reviled, slandered 
and rejected by the chiefs of the 
people whom he loved so well. 
We see him standing before the 

i m 



— 17 — 



half-reverent, half-contemptuous 
pity of his Roman judge. We 
hear the rude mockeries of the 
soldiers, and the sounds of the 
cruel scourge ; we go with him 
as he bears the Cross, and under 
it his very strength fails on the 
long, weary way, from the judg- 
ment-hall to the place of death, 
till at last we almost feel it a 
relief to think of the darkness 
which settled down over the 
shame, the suffering, the long, weary dying of the Passion. At every step the sense of pathos and sorrow 
swells, till it is hardly bearable. 

— Alfred Barry, D. D. 



Jesus Christ completed his active obedience by the passive obedience of suffering in perfect resigna- 
tion to the holy will of God ; and before he had reached the prime of manhood — the Saviour of the world 
a youth ! — he died, condemned by the Jewish courts, rejected by the people, denied by Peter, betrayed by 
J udas, but surrounded by his weeping mother and faithful disciples ; he died the shameful death of the 
Cross, the just for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty, a free self-sacrifice of infinite love to reconcile 
the world unto God. — Philip Schaff, D. D. 



LOOKING UPON JESUS. 

Augustine, who was placed 
foremost among the Christian 
fathers, declared that there were 
three things which he regretted 
he had never seen. The first 
was, " Christ in the flesh" ; the 
second, " Paul in the pulpit" ; 
and the third, " Pome in her 
glory." So earnest was his de- 
sire to see the first and greatest 
of these, and of all objects, that 
when he was writing on the 
passage of Scripture, " Thou 
canst not see my face and live," 
he penned this earnest petition : 
" Then, Lord, let me die, that I 
may see thy face." 

— E. D. Simons. 



— 18 — 



THE CONDESCENSION 
OF CHRIST. 



Perhaps to some minds it may- 
have seemed more congruous 
with the Divine Majesty, suppos- 
ing it needful for our salvation 
that God should humble himself 
at all, that the descent should have been less steep, and the humiliation less lowly. They would have 
chosen not some little insignificant planet like earth as the scene of his self-abnegation, but some central 
orb of metropolitan grandeur, and would have gathered the whole intelligent creation as spectators around 
the splendid arena. They would have shunned for him the ignominy of the Cross, and have selected what 
they deemed some more glorious method of self-sacrifice, whereby he should have paid the price of oiur re- 
demption. This they would have called a salvation, worthy God. But surely, as the heavens are higher 
than the earth, so are the ways of Jehovah higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts, j His 
work is perfect. Let us confide with child-like confidence, that herein was manifested omniscient love, 
when God chose the world — this little world of ours — to be the theatre of the mighty conflict, and sent His 
only-begotten Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to suffer death upon the Cross, and to be the propitiation 

of our sins. 

— E. II. Biekersteth. 



THE ATONEMENT. 



O, what a groan was there ! a groan not 
his. 

He seized our dreadful right ; the load 
sustained ; 

And heaved the mountain from a guilty 
world. 

— Young. 

And shall the sinful heart, alone, 
Behold, unmoved, the atoning hour, 

When Nature trembles on her throne, 
And death resigns his iron power ? 

0, shall the heart, — whose sinfulness 
Gave keenness to his sore distress, 
And added to his tears of blood — 
Refuse its trembling gratitude ? 

— Whittier. 



— 19 — 



GOD IN CHRIST. 

It was necessary that he who 

should bear the Divine Image, 

and stand forth as the world's 

exemplar, should he " a man of 

sorrows, and acquainted with 

^- - MM m m ^ M grief;" that he should tread 

— ; the darkest passages of the 

earthly pilgrimage, and the valley of the death-shadow. It is the tendency of human thought to connect 
all painful experiences — penury, suffering and death — with the Divine displeasure; to regard afflictions as 
judgments of Heaven, and even to brand the victims of signally heavy calamities as sinners beyond all 
others. Only through the destitution, homelessness, agony and Cross of the Sinless One, did the world 
learn that whom God loves, He chastens. It is in these experiences that man most needs both example 
and sympathy — the example of submission, trust and hope, the sympathy of one who has endured and over- 
come. The suffering now look to Christ in his agony, and repeat his prayer, " Not my will, but thine, be 
done," till pain and grief are merged in resignation, and turned to joy by the hope that is full of immortal- 
ity. The dying look to the grave as the place where the Lord lay, and whence he rose, and calmly and 
rejoicingly commit their departing spirits to their Father. Grief is transfigured by his endurance ; death 

— ^^^.^ — is swallowed up in victory by ^^^^mmmmmmmmmmmm*^^^^ 

the might of his Cross and the 
power of his resurrection. 

The influence of a suffering 
Redeemer has left its indelible 
traces in language which often 
embodies in single words whole 
chapters of human history. Be- 
fore he suffered, the terms which 
denoted sad experiences were all 
such as represented only the 
malignant aspect of what man 
endured, or, at best, the single 
fact of endurance. Take, for 
instance, the word calamitas 
(calamity), the condition, some 
say, of the blighted stalk, which 
bears no ear of grain ; others, of 
the broken reed. To Tertullian, 
the earliest of the Latin fathers, 
belongs, I believe, the appropri- 
ation of the first word that tells 
the whole story, expresses the 
divine side, the blessed ministry 



— 20 — 



of sorrow, tribulatio (tribula- 
tion), — threshing, the process by 

which the elements of character 

arc separated, the chaff given to 

the winds, the wheat heaped up 

for the harvest of which the 

angels are the reapers. 

It has thus been shown that in 

the person and relations of 

Christ as Mediator, as the image 

=a=Bmmm ^ B!limBmm ^^^ 1 ^^ m ^^^^^^^ °f God, as the exemplar of man, < m 

-— - — — — 1 we have precisely the offices we 

should anticipate from the loving providence of God ; and that in his condition in life, his sufferings and 
his death, we have the very elements which alone could have met the needs of man. 

—A. P. Peabody, P. P., LL. P. 

What is the real triumph of Calvary % Is it not the triumph of that love wherewith he loved us before 
we loved him ? What is the peace that tranquilizes the agonies of Gethsemane ? Is it not the oneness of 
the Son with the Father ? " God so loved the world." We cannot crucify his love. 

— F. P. Huntington, P. P. 



THE WOftD WAS MADE 
FLESH. 

Oh, wondrous humiliation of 
the Creator ! But this is not all. 
".He came," and "as many as 
received him, to them gave he 
power to become the sons of 
God." Oh, wondrous exaltation 
of us his creatures ! They are 
two mysteries, of which the sec- 
ond is only less marvellous than 
the first. He, the Infinite One, 
stooped to the extremity of woe 
that he might elevate us to the 
highest life which a created be- 
ing can enjoy — the life of God. 

— E. H. Bickersteth. 



— 21 — 



CHUKCH OF CHRIST. 

In order to help our manifold 
infirmities, God has given ns 
the Sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper as a mirror, in which 
we may contemplate the cruci- 
fied and risen Christ, that our 
sins and wickedness may be 
taken away. This especial consolation we receive from the Lord's Supper that it leads us to the Cross, 
and to the resurrection of the Lord, and teaches that, although wicked and unrighteous, we may be accept- 
ed and accounted righteous. 

— John Calvin. 



Having established the principles of the unity of the Church on Jesus Christ, it may be added : There 
is only one Church, which lies extended far and wide. As there are many rays of the sun, but only one 
brightness, one light ; and many branches on one tree, and yet only one stem, springing from one root ; 
and as from one fountain flow many brooks, so, also, the church, illuminated by the light of one God, 
spread through all the world, is yet but one light. — Cyprian. 



GOOD FRIDAY. 

Bound upon the accursed tree, 
Faint and bleeding, who is He? 

* x * * 

By the drooping, death-dewed brow, 
Son of Man ! 'tis Thou ! 'tis Thou ! 

Bound upon the accursed tree, 
Dread and awful, who is He ? 

* * * * 
Lord, our suppliant knees we bow — 
Son of God ! 'tis Thou ! 'tis Thou ! 

Bound upon the accursed tree — 
Sad and dying, who is He ? 

* * * * 
Crucified, we know Thee now ; 
Son of Man ! 'tis Thou ! 'tis Thou ! 

Bound upon the accursed tree ! 

Dread and awful, who is He ? 

* * # * 
By the rainbow 'round His brow ; 
Son of God ! 'tis Thou ! 'tis Thou ! 

— Henry Hart Milman. 



— 22 — 



THE CONFLICT AND 
VICTOEY. 

According to some accounts, 

the heart of Jesus failed him for 

a moment ; a cloud concealed the 

face of his Father; he endured 

1 an agony of despair, a thousand ' «- ■ — — 

times more excruciating than all his tortures ; he saw nothing but the ingratitude of man ; he cried out : 
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me !" But his divine instinct resumed its sway. He regained 
the consciousness of his mission ; he saw in his death the salvation of the world. He commenced upon the 
Cross the divine life which he was to lead in the heart of humanity for infinite ages. His head fell upon 
his breast and he expired, after uttering the cry, " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit !" 

Repose now in thy glory, noble founder! Thy work is finished; thy divinity is established. Hence- 
forth, beyond the reach of frailty, thou shalt witness from the heights of divine peace the infinite results of 
thy acts. Complete conqueror of death, take possession of thy kingdom, whither shalt follow thee, by the 
royal road which thou has traced, ages of worshippers. 

— JRenan. 



SALVATION THROUGH 
THE CROSS. 

By the Cross, the Apostle 
means that great system of truth 
and salvation which centres in 
and radiates from the death of 
Christ. We challenge the uni- 
verse to produce a set of motives 
suited to move and stir the very 
depths of man's whole moral 
nature, like those which emanate 
from the. doctrine of salvation 
by the Cross. 

—E.E.Seehje, D.D. 



— 23 



LESSON OF THE CftOSS. 

" The banner of the King goes forth — 

The Cross, the radiant mystery — 
AVhere, in a frame of human birth, 

Man's Maker suffers on the tree.'' 

It is not by looking at the 
hard and enraged faces of the 

, I erucifiers of our Lord, or listen- 

ing to their mocking words, or dwelling on the cruel stripes and wounds, we gain so much, — as by fixing 
our eyes on the patience of the spotless Lamb, the majestw of His silence, the mournful pity, the love, the 
compassion of the few words He spoke. Oh, it was that scene at the judgment-hall and on Calvary, that 
sufferer going willingly up to the death of shame for them, wounded for their transgressions, which shone 
before the hearts of those martyrs at Yalladolid and Seville, or they could never have endured as they did ! 
They could not have borne the robe, and the crown of mockery, had it not all been enacted before in Jeru- 
salem, fifteen hundred years ago. 

The spirit of Him who could to the last have called down legions of angels, and saved Himself, and 
did not, but saved us, was also in those Christians — in Him, without measure ; in them, within measure. 

— Mrs. Charles. 



Christ overcomes sin and de- 
livers us by his death, the pro- 
pitiation, gathering up the whole 
spiritual efficacy of his mediator- 
ship, and concentrating it in the 
submission of his agony, the 
bloody sweat of the garden, the 
mysterious torture that rent the 
veil, and darkened the sky, and 
shook the earth, the free offering 
of the blood of the Lamb of 
God for the sin of the world. 

— F. D. Huntington, 1). I). 

The Lord ! the Saviour ! yes, 'tis lie : 
I know him by the smiles he wears. 

Dear, glorious man, who died for me 
Drench' d deep in agonies and tears .' 

— Watts. 



— 24 — 



THE MAN OF SORROWS. 

Yonder they conduct the Man 
of Sorrows ! One cannot reflect 
who it is that is thus laden with 
the accursed tree, without feel- 
ing one's heart petrified with 
surprise and astonishment. But 
11 [ it is well for us that he traversed [ 

this path. 

It was now noon, and at the Holy City the sun should have been burning over that scene of horror 
with power such as it has in the full depth of an English summer-time. But instead of this, the face of the 
heavens was black, and the noon-day sun was " turned into darkness," on " this great and terrible day of 
the Lord." He there hung upon his Cross in silence and darkness ; but towards the close of those dark, 
sorrowful hours his anguish culminated — and he uttered that mysterious cry, of which the full significance 
will never be fathomed by man—" Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani ?" (" My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me ?") 

Tortures which grew ever more insupportable, ever more maddening, as time flowed on, was the suf- 
fering to which Christ was doomed, before " He gave up his soul to death." 

_- All the voices about him rang 

mmmmmmmmmmmi ^^ m ^ mmmm ^" • "J w it_ blasphemy and spite, and 

in that long, slow agony, his 
dying ear caught no accent of 
pity, of gratitude or of love. 

And now the end was come. 
" Father," he said, " into thy 

HANDS I COMMEND MY SPIRIT." 

With one more great effort he 
uttered the last cry — the one 
victorious word : " It is fin- 
ished." 

— Farrar. 



The incarnation of the Son is 
God's grand utterance to man- 
kind. The Word was made flesh, 
and dwelt among us. He came 
to make known the Father. 

— Wm. Arnot. 



— 25 — 



MARTYRDOM OF CHRIST. 

A noble death is the crowning 
act of a noble life. Never did 
any man surfer more innocently, 
more unjustly, more intensely, 
than Jesus of Nazareth. When 

that last hour came, with what ' 

— : self-possession and calmness, I » 

; with what strength and meekness, with what majesty and gentleness, did he pass through its dark and try- 
ing scenes. In the history of the passion, every word and act are unutterably significant, from the agony 
in Gethsemane, when, overwhelmed with the sympathetic sense of the entire guilt of mankind, and in full 
view of the terrible scenes before him, — the only guiltless being in the world, — he prayed that the cup 
might pass from him, but immediately added : " Not my, but thy, will be done," to the triumphant exclam- 
ation on the Cross : " It is finished !" Even Rousseau confessed : " If Socrates suffered and died like a 
philosopher, Christ suffered and died like a God." 

The passion and crucifixion of Jesus, like his whole character, stand without a parallel, solitary and 
alone in their glory, and will ever continue to be what they have been for these eighteen hundred years, — 
the most sacred theme of meditation, the highest exemplar of suffering virtue, the strongest weapon against 
- . - - ~~ i sin and Satan, the deepest source 

of comfort to the noblest and 
best of men. 

—Philip Schaff, D. D. 



Christ differed from all other 
men by his essential sinlessness 
and his absolute perfection. 

— Schliermacher. 

Christ's life is a perfect ideal 
poem, and his person the great- 
est of all heroes. 

— Thomas (Jarlyle. 

'Twas his own love that made him bleed, 
That nailed him to the cursed tree. 

— Watts. 



— 26 — 



THE LAST WALK TO 
BETHANY. 

So ended that great discourse 

upon the Mount of Olives. The 

sun set, and He arose and walked 

with his Apostles to Bethany. It 

_ I was the last time He would ever . ; 

walk it; and after the trials, the weariness, the awful teachings, the terrible agitations of that eventful day, 
how delicious to him must have been that hour of twilight loveliness and evening calm ; how refreshing the 
peace and affection which surrounded him in that quiet village. Jesus did not like cities, and scarcely ever 
slept within their precincts. But he loved the sweet home at Bethany. He could hold gladder communion 
with His Father in Heaven under the shadow of the olive trees, where he could watch the splendor of the 
sunset and the falling of the dew. Here He enjoyed the exquisite beauty of the Syrian evening. This 
was his native land. Bethany was almost to Him a second Nazareth ; those whom He loved were around 
Him. The moonlight and twilight blended at each step with the garish hues of day, like that solemn twi- 
light-purple of coming agony, into which the noon-day of His happier ministry had long since begun to 
fade. — Farrar. 



He, Christ, is the purest 
among the mighty, the mightiest 
among the pure, who with his 
pierced hand has raised empires 
from their foundations, turned 
the stream of history from its old 
channel, and still continues to 
rule and guide the ages 

— Richter. 



The conflict of faith and unbe- 
lief remains the proper, the only, 
the deepest theme of the history 
of the world and mankind, to 
which all others are subordi- 
nated. 

— Goethe. 



— 27 — 



THE WAY TO THE CROSS. 



"Then delivered he him 
therefore unto them." How 
mournful and horrifying this 
sounds ! Alas for Pilate ! Had 
he but known who it was, and 
all that he gave up in thus de- 

1 livering him ! Oh, if Pilate 

had had any idea of whose instrument he was at that moment ! But he is unacquainted with the precious 
words, " God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son," and those of the apostle, " He who 
spared not His own Son, but freely gave him up for us all : how shall He not, with him, also, freely give 
us all things ?" He was now ready for the last great sacrificial act. He had fulfilled the law, had victori- 
ously endured every trial of faith, and had proved himself in every ordeal to be pure and unalloyed gold. 
He was "the Lamb without spot," obedient beyond compare, and it was just such a sacrifice as this that the 
God of holiness required. Christ must first be found worthy of a crown before He could bear the curse. 
All is now in readiness. 

Now close the temple, ye sons of Aaron ; the types and shadows with which ye had to do have done 
their duty, now that the substance has appeared. Lay aside the band from your foreheads, 

and the breast-plate, ye ministers 
of the sanctuary ; for know that 
another now justly adorns him- 
self with both, and that your 
priesthood has reached its ter- 
mination. Jesus is now in the 
hands of his enemies, like a 
lamb amid wolves, or a dove in 
the claws of a vulture. Look 
how they treat the Holy One. 
They again assail him with the 
bitterest mockery, cruelly and 
rudely tear the purple robe from 
his bleeding body, and put on 
him his own clothes, not from 
compassion, but because it seems 
to them that the horrible death 
to which they are now conduct- 
ing him is no longer to be treat- 
ed as a jest, but requires a cer- 
tain solemn seriousness. 

— Krummaclier . . . 



— 28 — 



SIN. 

Let us contemplate the Cross 
of Christ. We are purified 
from our sins by His blood — 
understand it well — piirified 
from our sins by His blood, re- 
deemed by His bitter sacrifice, 
our sins expiated by His Cross, 
in the simplest and most popular sense, as well as in the most profound, Jesus being the propitiatory victim, 
reconciling us to God by His death. 

Under the Cross, the aspect of pain changes completely, and the change is in proportion to our faith. 
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has appeared in the world. And how % As a man of joy ? No, as a man 
of sorrows. Here is a prodigy, astounding and unnatural ! The Son of God appeared upon earth, not 
only as a sufferer, but as enduring misery so intense that no human being can conceive of it. The Cross of 
Jesus is the very centre and sum of all suffering, absorbing all into itself. There is no pain or sorrow 
which is not a part of what He suffered there, none that his Cross does not explain. 

Why did Jesus Christ suffer 1 To expiate sin. We cannot bear all that our Saviour endured, but we 
shall be happy to bear our part, looking upon it as a just punishment. 

Why did Jesus Christ suffer 
in expiation of sin ? To save us, 
and make us partakers of eternal 
glory, by His love. This is a 
leading thought in the contem- 
plation of our Saviour's suffer- 
ings. Christ has suffered for 
sin , pain is therefore a fruit of 
sin, wholesome and necessary. 
Christ has suffered to save ; 
therefore I ought also to suffer 
for the good of others, and to 
lead souls captive to the obedi- 
ence of the Cross. In heaven, 
we shall consider it a great 
privilege to have suffered much 
here, under the Cross of Jesus ! 
Oh, what wretchedness, what 
misery ! What a fearful thing 
is sin ! This is what Jesus 
Christ saw when he descended 
from heaven to save us. We 
did not know it, but He knew 
it. We did not feel it, but he 



— 29 — 



I — • " ' I •-" I 



felt it for us, and this gave Him 
strength to endure the torture of 
the Cross, the anguish of Geth- 



semane, 



the 



struggles 



of the 



desert, and all the trials and 
humiliations that went before 
and made up His entire life. 

The sufferings, then, which he 
has borne for us, determine the 
measure of His estimate of sin ; 
of the depth of the abyss from 
which He has raised us. None 
of us, not one of us, has the slightest idea of what sin is ! We cannot know what sin is, because we cannot 
fully know our Saviour, nor His sufferings, nor His love. 

Let us go to Jesus in profound humiliation, but with confidence, without reserve, in Him who has 
done all and suffered all for us. Oh, the infinite sweetness of perfect rest at the foot of His Cross ! "When 
I perceive the depth of my misery and wretchedness, I embrace the Cross of my Saviour, and I want noth- 
ing more ; grace and justice from the Cross alone ; no admixture of my own works. My own works ! 
They could only condemn me ; but purchased by Him, and washed in His blood who has expiated my sins, 
I cling to the Cross, and find my only support in my Saviour's sacrifice. 

Let us seize hold upon the Cross. Let us die embracing it, let us die proclaiming it, and our death 
will be the beginning of life ; and God will be glorified in us, whether by our life or by our death, and, 

above all, by the blood and the 
redemption of the Lamb of God. 

— Adolphe Monod. 



CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM. 



The Cross, as a symbol of 
Christ, is acknowledged to be 
equal in importance to His other 
symbol, the Lamb, or the sym- 
bol of the Holy Ghost, the Dove. 
It is, in Christian iconography, 
as frequently an impersonation 
of Christ as His symbol. In 
representations of the Trinity, 
where God the Father is depicted 
as a Man, and the Holy Spirit 
as a Dove, Christ is at times im- 
aged by the Cross alone. 

The forms which the Cross 
assumes are almost countless. 
Yet, numerous as they are, they 



— 30 — 



are nearly all based upon two 
principal types, known as the 
Greek and the Latin. The Latin 
Cross represents the actual Cross 
on which our Saviour suffered ; 
and in its simple, unadorned 
shape, it is called the Calvary 
Cross. 

Nearly all Crosses used as 
heraldic are of the Greek type ; 
and the same remark holds good 

: J with regard to the decorative art. I - , - ' - - - - 

The Cross Triumphant reminds us that as all animated creation looks to the sun, our souls must look 
for light and life to that which is the centre of all spiritual radiance, the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

— Audsley. 



THE BRINGING OF THE CROSS. 

Look, yonder they bring it ! According to the Roman custom, all who were condemned to the pun- 
ishment of the Cross were compelled to carry that instrument of their death to the place of execution ; and 
even the Divine Sufferer is not spared this disgrace and toil. Without mercy they lay on his wounded back 

— ■" the horrible instrument of tor- ■ — ■- 

ture. Look there, he bends be- 
neath his heavy burden ! Dread- 
ful and horrible is his situation ! 
All his friends have forsaken 
him, and even heaven is silent 
above him. An ancient legend 
states that Veronica, a young- 
maiden, stepped up to him, 
weeping, from the crowd, and 
wiped the bloody sweat from his 
wounded brow. In gratitude 
for this service, the Lord left her 
his image on the napkin. Who- 
ever is brought by love to the 
Saviour, he impresses_ his thorn- 
crowned likeness on their hearts, 
as the gift of his reciprocal affec- 
tion ; and he henceforth carries 
it about with him as a most val- 
uable legacy. 

— Krummacher. 



— 31 — 



EARTH-TEACHINGS. 

This earth has been trodden 
by the blessed feet of the incar- 
nate son of God. His voice of 
prayer has been lifted up in its 
solitudes. He drank of its gush- 

tng streams. He climbed its 

— hills and mountain paths. He ' : , 

rested beneath the shade of its trees and beside its wells of water. He went forth to toil with its morning 
light. He endured the heat of its burning noon. He slept under the shadow of its night. The homes of 
earth have been comforted by his sympathizing tears. The dust of earth has been consecrated by his sacri- 
ficial blood. The graves of earth have been hallowed by his repose in the tomb. Outcast, and accursed, 
as would be this earth if given up to man's sin, it is made holy by the sacrifice of the Cross, and we may 
present all its riches and resources as a pure offering to God in the name of Jesus. 

In such a world, consecrated by the Cross of Christ, it must be our highest and happiest life to live by 
faith on the Son of God. He has made the most astonishing sacrifice in our behalf, and he has a right to 
expect that nothing shall come between our hearts and him. 

— Daniel March, D. D. 



THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 

There they crucified Him. 
Let our hearts be touched with 
the feeling of that exquisite pain 
which our blessed Saviour now 
endured, and let us look on Him 
who was thus pierced, and 
mourn. Was ever sorrow like 
unto His sorrow ? And, when 
we behold what manner of death 
He died, let us in that behold 
with what manner of love He 
loved us. 

One would have thought that, 
when His enemies had nailed 
Him to the Cross, they had done 
their worst, and malice itself had 
been exhausted. But, to com- 
plete the humiliation of the Lord 
Jesus, and to show that, when 
He was dying, He was bearing 
iniquity, He was then loaded 



— 32 — 



with reproach, and, for aught 
that appears, not one of His 
friends, who the other day cried 
Jlosanna to Hi in, durst be seen 
to show Him any respect. 

— Matthew Henry. 



OUR SACRIFICE. 

It was the Cross, on which the 
Saviour made atonement for the 

. , 1 sins of the world. The whole of ! 

the Christian's hope of heaven, and all his peace and consolation in trial and in death, depend on the sacrifice 
there made for sin, and on just views and feelings in regard to the fact and design of the Redeemer's death. 
* * ■ * * * * * 

" They gave him vinegar to drink, mingled with gall : and when he had tasted thereof, he would not I 
drink." — Matt., xxvn., 34. This sour wine was rendered bitter by the infusion of wormwood. The effect 
of this was to stupefy the senses. It was often given to those who were crucified, to render them insensi- 
ble to the pains of death. Our Lord, knowing this, when he had tasted it, refused to drink. He was 
unwilling to blunt the pains of dying. The cup which his Father gave him, he chose to drink. He came 
to suffer. His sorrows were necessary for the work of the atonement, and he gave himself up to the unmit- 
igated sufferings of the Cross. 

The sun was darkened, but it 

was not by an eclipse. The only 
cause of this was the interposing 
power of God — furnishing testi- 
mony to the dignity of the Suf- 
ferer, and causing the elements 
to sympathize with the pains of 
His dying Son. It was also 
peculiarly proper to furnish this 
testimony when the Sun of 
Righteousness was withdrawing 
his beams for a time, and the 
Redeemer of men was expiring. 

— Albert Barnes. 



Inscribed upon the Cross we see, 
In shining letters, " God is love ;" 

He bears our sins upon the tree, 
He brings us mei - cy from above. 

— Thomas Ktlley. 



THE CRUCIFIXION. 

" I, MILES, EXPEDI CRUCEM." 

(" Go, soldier, get ready the 
Cross.") The execution of our 
Saviour followed immediately 
upon the judgment. They strip- 
ped Jesus of the scarlet war- 
cloak, now dyed with the yet 
deeper stains of blood, and clad him again in his own garments. Crucifixion, among the Romans, was a 
very common punishment, and it is clear they would not waste any trouble in constructing the instrument 
of torture and shame. It would undoubtedly be made of the commonest wood that came to hand, perhaps 
olive or sycamore, and put together in the rudest fashion. But Jesus was enfeebled by scourging, and by 
previous days of violent struggle and agitation, by an evening of deep and overwhelming emotion, by a 
night of sleepless anxiety and suffering, by the mental agony of the garden, by three trials, and three senten- 
ces of death before the Jews, by the exhausting scenes in the Praetorium, and by the examination before 
Herod ; it was evident he lacked the physical strength to carry his Cross from the Praetorium to Golgotha. 

As they reached the city gate, the}^ met a man coming from the country, whom they supposed sympa- 
thized with the teaching of the Sufferer, and impressed him into their odious service. They came to the 

fatal place, called Golgotha, or, 
in its Latin form, Calvary — that 
is, " a skull." The name maj 
imply a bare, rounded, scalp-like 
elevation. It is constantly called 
the " hill of Golgotha," or of 
Calvary ; but the gospels call it 
" a place." Here the three 
Crosses were laid on the ground 
— that of Jesus being placed in 
bitter scorn in the midst. The 
title carried by one of the sol- 
diers in front of him, was nailed 
to the summit of his Cross — 
then followed the most awful 
moment of all. He was laid 
upon the implement of torture. 
His arms were stretched along 
the cross-beams. Huge nails tore 
their way through the quivering- 
flesh. At this moment of horror 
the voice of the Son of Man was 
heard praying for his brutal and 
pitiless murderers — " Father, 



— 34 — 



forgive them, for they know not 
what they do." 

— Farrar. 



SIMON OF CYRENE. 

In a spiritual sense, we become 
like Simon of Cyrene. We en- 
ter into the most vital, fervent, 
and blissful fellowship with the 
Cross of Christ. We are everywhere and continually occupied with this Cross, and it becomes the sign 
by which we are known. If listened to in our chamber, we are heard praying beneath the Cross. If we 
hope for a favorable answer to our requests, the Cross emboldens us to expect it. If our conversation is 
in heaven, the Cross is the heavenly ladder, on the steps of which we rise above the world, death, and hell. 
The Cross forms the focus of all our heartfelt melody. If a gleam of joy rests upon our foreheads, the 
Cross is the sun from whence it proceeds. If we are courageous, it is in the shadow of the Cross. If we 
overcome the temptations of the wicked one, the Cross of Christ is the banner under which we conquer. 

May we learn to bear the Cross of Christ with a holy pride. It will thus become to us a tree of life, 
from which we may pluck heavenly fruit. 

— Krummaeher. 



LEARN OF HIM. 

Go to dark Gethsemane, 

Ye that feel the tempter's power, 
Your Redeemer's conflict see, 

Watch with Him one bitter hour ; 
Turn not from His griefs away. 
Learn of Jesus Christ to pray. 

Follow to the judgment-hall ; 

View the Lord of life arraign' d ; 
0, the wormwood and the gall ! 

0, the pangs His soul sustain'd ! 
Shun not suffering, shame, or loss ; 
Learn of Him tr bear the Cross . 

Calvary's mournful mountain climb, 
There, adoring at His feet, 

Mark the miracle of time, 
God's own sacrifice complete. 

" It is finished !"— hear Him cry ; 

Learn in Christ to live and die. 

— Montgomery. 



— 35 — 



THE CRY FOR SALVA- 
TION . 

The Cross of Christ, as He 
Himself interprets it, tells a tale, 
which is one, simple, indivisible — 

_ a revelation of Cod's love to the 

— whole race of man, in direct I 

reference to those very facts of sin, sorrow and death, from which all mere Natural theologies turn away. 
Yet it is — do you not know that it is ? — most keenly and intensely personal. These simple, well-known 
words — 

"Thou art as much His care, as if beside 
Nor man nor angel lived in heaven or earth" — 

We ourselves groan within ourselves, under a burden the whole weight of which only He, our dear Lordj 
bore 01.1 Calvary. 

In the Cross is set forth a Redeemer, at once God and man, who has broken the yoke of this bondage 
for the race, who will guide each individual soul by His grace to grow up into perfect freedom. 

— Alfred Barry, D. D. 



If the second Person of the 
adorable Trinity, the Creator, 
submitted to mocking, buffeting, 
and a death of shame at the 
hands of his own creatures, in 
order that the will of the Father 
might be fulfilled, surely it be- 
comes the child of Cod to bow 
with equal submission to all 
trials, afflictions, and bereave- 
ments sent upon him by the glori- 
ous three in one, Father, Re- 
deemer and Sanctifier. 

—I). II. Hill. 

Says Robertson, — and how 
truly ! — "Is not the mystic 
yearning of love expressed in 
words most purely thus : ' Let 
me suffer for him!' 1 '' 



— 36 — 



THE ONE ALTOGETHER 
LOYELY. 

The sufferings of our Saviour 
in Gethsemane were so great 
that the very prospect of others, 
that he was on the point of un- 
dergoing, excited this dolefnl 
exclamation : "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death ; tarry ye here and watch." On this great 
occasion, he sustained those grievous sorrows in his soul, by which, as well as by dying on the Cross; he 

became a sin-offering, and accomplished the redemption of mankind. 

* * ***■*#- 

The solemn and awful period now approached, when the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world, was 
to undergo the oppressive burden of our sins, upon the tree, and submit unto death, even the death of the 
Cross, that we might live at the right hand of God forever and ever. 

While his murderers were piercing his hands and his feet, he calmly, though fervently, prayed for 
them, and for all those who had any hand in his death, beseeching his heavenly Father to forgive 
them, and excusing them himself by the only circumstance that could alleviate their guilt — their ignor- 
ance. This was infinite meek- 
ness and goodness, truly worthy 
of the only-begotten Son of 
God ; an example of forgiveness, 
which, though it can never be 
equaled by any, should be imi- 
tated by all. Was ever love 
like this ? Was ever benevo- 
lence so gloriously displayed ? 

But see, the Sun, that glorious 
luminary of heaven, as it were, 
hides his face from this detest- 
able action of mortals, and is 
wrapt in the pitchy mantle of 
chaotic darkness ! And nothing 
surely could be more proper 
than this extraordinary alter- 
ation in the face of nature, while 
the Son of Righteousness was 
withdrawing his beams, not only 
from the promised land, but 
from the whole world ; for it 
was at once a miraculous testi- 
mony, given by the Almighty 



— 37 — 



himself, to the innocence of his 
Son, and a proper emblem of 
the departure of him who was 

the light of the world. 

* * * # 

Our Saviour came into the 
world inspired with the grandest 
purpose that ever was formed ; 
that of saving from eternal per- 
dition, not a single nation, but 
the whole world ; and in the exe- 

•. • = . .._ eutioi) of it went through the 

longest and heaviest train of labors that ever was sustained, with a constancy and resolution, on which no 
disadvantageous impression could be made by any accident whatever. Calumny, fhreatenings, bad suc- 
cess, with many other evils constantly attending him, served only to quicken his endeavors in this glorious 

enterprise, which he unceasingly pursued, even till he had finished it by death. 

* * * * * * * 

Whether we consider him as a teacher, or as a man, "he did no sin, neither was guile found in his 
mouth." Never to have committed the least sin, in word or deed ; never to have uttered any sentiment 
that could be censured, upon the various topics of religion and morality, which were the daily subjects of 
his discourses; and that through the course of a life filled with action, and led under the observation of 
many enemies, who had always access to converse with him, and who often came to find fault, is a pitch of 

. . . perfection evidently above the . 

— ' " ~ ~ ~ : reach of human nature; mid — - 

consequently he who possessed 
it must have been divine. 

It is said that St. Andrew, 
when he gave his last and great- 
est testimony to the gospel of 
his Divine Master, sealing it 
with his blood at Petrea, a city 
of Achaia, as he came near the 
| Cross, he saluted it in the fol- 
lowing manner : " I have long 
desired and expected this happy 
hour. The Cross has been con- 
secrated by the body of Christ 
hanging on it, and adorned with 
his members as with so many 
inestimable jewels. v 

— J. Fleetwood, D. 



— 38 — 



IMITATION OF C HEIST. 

Christ's Cross is the universal 

Cross, Ill's victory the victory of 

all the good who love Cod. The 

reception of Jesns into the heart 

is the reception of the divine 

love. Embracing there his pas- 

. 1 sion and death, or, in other , 

words, his Cross, becomes the dying and crucifixion of self. Christ sacrificed himself completely for us, in 
order that we may wholly become his, and continue to be so, and may live in him more than in ourselves. 
All others are to be loved for Jesus' sake, but Jesus, like God, for his own. Let Christ crucified live in us, 
and His Cross be wholly imprinted upon our hearts. To receive Christ crucified in the heart is the basis 
of all good. 

The Passion of our Lord principally teaches us the surrender of our own will, obedience unto death, 
renunciation of the inordinate pleasures of the world, and cheerful patience in affliction. 

— Thomas y a JTernpis. 



THE AGONY. 

By thine hour of dire despair ; 
By thine agony of prayer ; 
By the Cross, the wail, the thorn, 
Piercing spear, and torturing scorn ; 
By the gloom that veiled the skies, 
O'er the dreadful sacrifice, — 
Listen to our humble cry, 
Hear our solemn litany ! 

— Sir Robert Grant. 

Thou, Lord, art patience, and 
pity, and sweetness, and love ; 
when we had sinned beyond any 
help in heaven or earth, then 
thou saidst, Lo, I come ! Thou 
wast born for us, thou livedst 
and died for us. Blessed 
Saviour ! Many waters could 
not quench thy love. But 
though the streams of thy blood 
were current through darkness, 
grave and hell, yet by thy con- 
flicts, didst thou arise triumphant, 
and madest us victorious. 

— George Herbert. 



— 39 — 



PRAYERFULNESS. 

Jesus was emphatically a man 
of prayer. He was incarnate 
wisdom ; he was infinite in 
power, and boundless in his re- 
sources, yet — He prayed. How 
deeply sacred the prayerful 
memories that hover around the 
solitudes of Olivet and the shores of Tiberias ! He seemed often to turn night into day to redeem moments 
for prayer, rather than lose the blessed privilege. Isaiah says, " He wakeneth morning by morning ; he 
wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned." Beautiful description ! — a praying Redeemer, wakening, as if 
at early dawn, the ear of his Father, to get fresh supplies for the duties, and the trials of the day ! All his 
public acts were consecrated by prayer, — his baptism, his transfiguration, his miracles, his agony, his death. 
He breathed away his spirit in prayer. " His last breath," says Philip Henry, " was praying breath." 
How sweet to think, in holding communion with God — Jesus drank of this very brook ! 

—McDutf. 



How little do we understand 
the sufferings of our. blessed 
Redeemer. God has, in much 
mercy, hid the future from us. 
"Who, in the morning of his days, 
would not be appalled with hor- 
ror, if the veil were lifted up, 
and he were permitted to gaze 
upon the dreadful scenes through 
which he had to pass in after 
life ? But, thanks to our gra- 
cious Father, the future has been 
revealed to but one man of our 
race. With him, the terrible 
conflict in Gethsemane was an 
ever-present reality, from the 
moment that he could lisp his 
mother's name in Nazareth, till 
he cried, " It is finished !" upon 
Calvary. 

— D. H. Hill. 



— 40 — 



Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God. 
The name given to the prayer, 
" O, Lamb of God, that takest 
away the sins of the world." 



THE SIN-BEARER. 

" He was wounded for our transgres- 
sions ; He was bruised for our iniquities." 

— Isaiah, LIII., 5. 

1 Thy works, not mine, 0, Christ, 

Speak gladness to this heart ; 
They tell me all is done ; 
They bid my fear depart. 
To whom save thee, 
Who can alone 
For sin atone, 
Lord, shall I flee? 

2 Thy pains, not mine, 0, Christ, 

Upon the shameful tree, 
Have paid the law's full price, 
And purchased peace for me. 
To whom, save thee, etc.. 

3 Thy wounds, not mine, 0, Christ, 

Can heal my bruised soul ; 
Thy stripes, not mine, contain 
The balm that makes me whole. 
To whom, save thee, etc. 

4 Thy blood, not mine, 0, Christ, 

Thy blood so freely spilt, 
Can blanch my blackest stains, 
And purge away my guilt. 
To whom, save thee, etc. 

5 Thy cross, not mine, 0, Christ, 

Has borne the awful load 
Of sins that none in heaven 
Or earth could bear but God. 
To whom, save thee, etc. 

6 Thy death, not mine, 0, Christ, 

Has paid the ransom due ; 
Ten thousand deaths like mine 
Would have been all too few. 
To whom, save thee, etc. 

—II. Bonar, D. D. 



Upon the ignominious'arms of 
the Cross, the glory of the Uni- 



verse is hung. 



— Guthrie. 



— 41 — 



THE CROSS REVEALING 
THE LOVE OF GOD. 

And why did Christ choose 
his sufferings ? For us, because 
he could not bear the thought of 

mBmmmm ^ mmmamammmmmmmm ^^^^^ mn the eternal misery to which sin ^^^^^^^mmmmmmm—mmmmmmm—mm 

— 1 1 had condemned us. What love, 

my God, what love ! Passing over his earlier career of suffering and humiliation, come at once to Geth- 
semane. In the middle of the night you enter the garden of olive trees, and see one lying on the ground, 
with his face toward the earth ; he is weeping, crying aloud. It is your Saviour. By His very posture, 
by His prayers, by his tender reproaches to His disciples, you can measure the immensity of his suffering — 
an anguish we are no more capable of understanding than we are able to conceive of God or of infinity ; 
for it is not only an outward physical suffering, but a spiritual suffering, of which we can form no idea. 
There was a secret, inner anguish, into which we can never penetrate — the anguish of bearing alone, before 
the Holy God, the burden of our sins ; He innocent, for us guilty. Why does he suffer thus ? For thee, 
sinner, for thee. So dearly did He love thee, that, wert thou the only one on earth to be saved, for thee 
alone wo\dd He have entered the garden of Gethsemane. What love ! 

1M n— ,m ■■— M i _ I Look upon the Cross. How f~ mam — — — ammm mmm — lmm — mmm ^ B 

can I describe so great a mys- 
tery ? With you, I stand at the 
foot of the Cross, and watch the 
sufferings of my Saviour. In 
the very moment when he is 
given up to the most cruel an- 
guish, to a frightful agony, of 
which we can never gain the 
faintest glimpse, in that very mo- 
ment He overcomes His pain 
and suffering to glorify God, and 
to save men, even unto the end. 
From the very depths of his 
death-agony, we hear, " Father, 
forgive them, for they know not 
what they do." What love! Oh, 
the grandeur and incomprehen- 
sible depth of the mercy of God ! 

Filled, then, with this image 
of our Saviour's love, and of the 
love of God as revealed in Him, 
reading in the father-heart of 
God His love for us, we should 



— 42 — 



devote ourselves to the Lord, to 
do and to suffer all that He may 
see fit to ordain for us. 

— Adolphe Monod. 



THE HOLY CROSS. 

Jesus is delivered over to his 
enemies. The soldiers have 

— ..J 

__. I made their preparations. The 

awful sign appears, which has since become the standard of the kingdom of Christ, and the token of our 
salvation. During the space of three thousand years it had been constantly symbolized to the view of the 
believing Israelites. It is even reflected in the peculiar manner in which the patriarch Jacob, with crossed 
hands, blessed his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh. It glimmered no less in the wave-offerings of the 
tabernacle and temple, which, as is well known, were wont to be waved so as to make the form of a Cross 
appear. In the wilderness, the sign was elevated to support the brazen serpent, and the spirit of prophecy 
interwove it in the figurative language of David's Psalms, when placing in the mouth of the future Messiah 
the words, "They pierced rny hands and my feet." 

— Krummacher. 




Thou, 0, my Jesus, thou didst me 

Upon the Cross embrace ; 
For me didst bear the nails and spear 

And manifold disgrace; 
And griefs and torments numberless, 

And sweat of agony — 
E'en death itself — and all for one 

Who was thine enemy ! 

Then why, 0, blessed Jesus Christ, 

Shall I not love thee well, 
Not for the sake of winning heaven — 

Or of escaping hell — 
Not with the hope of gaining aught, 

Not seeking a reward, 
But as thyself hast loved me, 

0, ever-loving Lord ! 

— Francis Xavier. 

Who would know Sinne, let him repair 

Unto Mount Olivet ; there shall he see 
A man so wrung with pains, that all his 
hair, 

His skinne, his garments bloudie be. 

— George Herbert. 



I 



— 43- 



HISTORY OF THE CROSS 
OF CHRIST. 

Dear Lord ! who thine own Cross to death 

didst bear, 
Teach us its spirit, and thy life, to share. 

The Cross was held in utter 

— , abhorrence, a token of ignominy 

and loathing. It had come to be generally considered as the very emblem of defeated crime, and disgrace- 
ful punishment : a synonym for all that was at once powerless and execrable. 

Such was its history until Jesus Christ died on it, and then how it was changed ! In an instant, as it 
were, _t became the most glorious instrument, the most resistless symbol that will ever be known. That 
such a Being should have died on it, in such a spirit, and for such a purpose — that the spotless Image of 
God, from self-sacrificing love, for the enforcement of divine truth, should have died on it — this completely 
changed its significance and its associations. The fanatic Jews, and enraged Romans — blinded murderers, 
not knowing what they did — reared a Cross upon Calvary. It stood there, as many a one had stood before, 
— a sight of horror. But he who was about to die thereon, without a parallel, was " The Lamb of God 
that taketh away the sins of mankind." They transfixed his bleeding limbs, and "lifted" him " up," ignor- 

; ________ an {. j. na j. h e should thus be ena- i ^ 

bled to " draw all men unto 
him." Love of man, and trust 
of God, were blended in his fea- 
tures, and forgiveness fell from 
his lips, while, an ever-memora- 
ble spectacle, he hung there 
dying. At last he raised his 
fainting head and exclaimed, " It 
is finished ! " and immediately 
the dark and shameful Cross 
was transfigured and irradiate, 
the blood-stained wood beamed 
with a glory that pales all the 
splendor of the world. It was 
henceforth to be the accredited 
symbol of God's love, and 
Christ's Divinity, and man's re- 
demption, and death's overthrow, 
and Heaven's immortal bright- 
ness. 

When Pilate wrote the inscrip- 
tion, and ordered it to be placed 
on the Cross of Christ over his 



— 44 — 



head, lie little dreamed it would 
one day be repeated through the 
world, not as mockery, but as 
loyalty. The most astonishing 
and inspiring page in the annals 
of time is the page which re- 
counts the triumphs of this in- 
strument, once the symbol of all 
that is ignominious, now of all 
that is divine and enduring. 
Among the mountains of Au- 



vergne stands an altar of heathen 
worship, a Druid rocking stone, overgrown with moss and age, surmounted by a rude Cross, probably a 
thousand years old. No traveler passes it without emotion and thought. It is at once a memorial of the 
past conquests of the religion of Christ crucified over the pagan faiths, and a prophecy of its future reign 
without a rival. A still more emphatic emblem of the destined universality of the empire of Christianity 
was afforded by the sceptre of Theodosius. It was a globe crowned by a Cross, meant to represent the 
earth subdued to the faith of Christ. The same symbol, we believe, is always placed in the hand of a 
monarch of Great Britain at his coronation, and was held by the present Queen during that ceremony. But 
not only has the Cross climbed to the tops of altars, the domes of temples, the spires of churches, to pro- 
claim its triumphs ; it has also ascended into the sky, and there, as 

•■ Of man's redemption autograph supreme, 
Is fitly charactered by stars in heaven." 



In the southern firmament is 
a well-known constellation, com- 
posed of five large stars, located 
in a cruciform shape, called 
"The Cross of the South." 
From that splendid spot in the 
heavens it looks down upon the 
earth, and preaches the resurrec- 
tion and deification of Christ, 
and of the cause for which he 
gave his life. There the sign 
of the Son of Man is seen in 
heaven. And far beyond it 
Jesus himself lives, and reigns, 
and invites his followers to come 
unto him. 

Originally, the prominent 
aspect of the Cross was its inex- 
pressible cruelty and injustice. 
It was the most appalling trage- 
dy ever enacted amidst the 
darkened heavens and the shud- 
dering earth by the unfeeling 



— 45 — 



sin of man. It was horror, ag- 
ony and tear a few moments ; it 
is blessing, power and sanctifica- 
tion forever. 

The bearing of his own Cross 
by the Saviour, as our example, 
has consoled and inspired mill- 
ions to bear their Crosses with a 
peaceful joy, a divine resigna- 
tion, an all-suffering faith and 
love towards God, and an un- 
doubting bope of heaven, which 
they would not have known were it not written : " And they took Jesus and led him away ; and he, bear- 
ing his Cross, went forth." Who will undertake to estimate the power, the softening, spiritualizing power, 
that has gone forth, and will go forth more and more through all coming ages, from the Prayer of the 
Cross, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Poor, spurned outcast, unpitied victim 
of injustice, sorrowful and weary sufferer, go — 

"Weigh thy grief with the Cross 
Of Christ, and see which is the heavier." 

The Cross is the all-conquering token of what is holiest, strongest and dearest ; even as the token of a 

pardoning God, a sacrificed Redeemer, a triumphant Resurrection, and an unending Heaven. 

H 

" 0, glorious Cross! Eternity and Time 
Meet on this pillar of the truth of God : 
There, Justice wields heaven's sin-aveng- 
ing rod — 

There, Mercy bleeds for man's stupen- 
dous crime. 
O, glorious Cross ! when shall this truth 

sublime — 
That He who died upon that altar lives 
Above, and prays for man : that power he 
gives 

To all who pray through Him that they 

may climb, 
0, glorious Cross ! up towards the Father's 
throne — 

0, when shall this high truth to every 
heart 

Grace, joy, salvation, Christian life im- 
part, 

And all mankind seek bliss in that alone ? 
0, glorious Cross ! Faith trusts the day to 
see, 

When Hope shall turn all eyes, Love draw 
all hearts to Thee.' ' 

— IF. R. Alger. 



— 46 — 



A FORM OF FRAYER, 

RECORDING ALL THE PARTS AND 
MYSTERIES OF CHRIST'S PASSION. 

All praise, honor and glory 

T be to the holy and eternal Jesus. I 

I adore thee, O, Blessed Re- " j 

deemer, eternal God, the light of the Gentiles, and the glory of Israel ; for thou hast done and suffered ., 
for me more than I could wish ; more than I could think of ; even all that a lost and a miserable perishing ; 
sinner could possibly need. = 

Thou wert afflicted with thirst and hunger, with heat and cold, with labors and sorrows-, with hard 
journeys and restless nights ; and when thou wert contriving all the mysterious and admirable ways of pay- ■ 
ing our scores, thou didst suffer thyself to be designed to slaughter by those for whom, in love, thou wert 
readv to die. 

Blessed be thy name, O, holy Jesus ; for thou wentest about doing good, working miracles of mercy, 
healing the sick, comforting the distressed, instructing the ignorant, raising the dead, enlightening the 
blind, stren gthening the lame, reliev ing the poor, preaching the gosp el, and reconcili ng sinners by the 

i mi in« mightiness of thy power, by the ■ i t ^ mM ^ mammimm ^ mmimm 

wisdom of thy spirit, by the 
word of God, and the merits of 
thy passion, thy healthful and 
bitter passion. 

Blessed be thy name, O, holy 
Jesus, who wert content to be 
conspired against by the Jews, 
to be sold by thy servant for a 
vile price, and to wash the feet 
of him that took money for thy 
life, and to give to him and to 
all thy apostles thy most holy 
body and blood, to become a 
sacrifice for their sins, even for 
their betraying and denying 
thee ; and for all my sins, even 
for my crucifying thee afresh, 
and for such sins, which I am 
ashamed to think, but that the 
greatness of my sins magnify 
the infiniteness of thy mercies, 
who didst so great things for so 
vile a person. 



— 47 — 



Blessed be thy name, O, holy 
Jesus, who, being to depart the 
world, didst comfort thy apos- 
tles, pouring out into their ears 
and hearts treasures of admir- 
able discourses ; who didst re- 
commend them to thy Father 
with a mighty charity, and then 
didst enter into the garden set 
with nothing but. briers and 
sorrows, where thou didst suffer 

I a most unspeakable agony, until I . 

the sweat strained through thy pure skin like drops of blood, and there didst sigh and groan, and fall upon 

the earth, and pray, and submit to the intolerable burden of thy Father's wrath, which I had deserved, and 

thou suffered st. 

Blessed be thy name, O, holy Jesus, who has sanctified to us all our natural infirmities and passions, by 
vouchsafing to be in fear and trembling, and sore amazement, by being bound and imprisoned, by being 
harassed and dragged with cords of violence and rude hands, and used like a sinner, who wert the most 
holy and the most innocent, cleaner than an angel, and brighter than the morning star. 

Blessed be thy name, O, holy Jesus, and blessed be thy loving kindness and pity, by which thou didst 
neglect thy own sorrows, and go to comfort the sadness of thy disciples, quickening their dulness, encour- 
aging their duty, arming their weakness with excellent precepts against the day of trial. Blessed be that 

___ humility and sorrow of thine, i 

.„ , =iraa , -who, Lord of the angels, yet 

wouldst need and receive com- 
fort from thy servant the angel ; 
who didst offer thyself to thy 
persecutors, and madest them 
able to seize thee ; and didst 
receive the traitor's kiss, and 
sufferedst a veil to be thrown 
over thy holy face that thy ene- 
mies might not presently be con- 
founded by so bright a lustre ; 
and wouldst do a miracle to cure 
a wound of one of thy spiteful 
enemies ; and didst reprove a 
zealous servant in behalf of a 
malicious adversary ; and then 
didst go like a lamb to the 
slaughter, without noise, or vio- 
lence, or resistance, when thou 
couldst have commanded mill- 
ions of angels for thy guard and 
rescue. 

Blessed be thy name, O, holy 



— 48 — 



Jesus, and blessed be that holy 
sorrow thou didst suffer, when 
thy disciples fled, and thou wert 
left alone in the hands of cruel 
men, who thirsted for a draught 
of thy best blood : and thou wert 
led to the house of Annas, and 
there asked ensnaring questions, 
and smitten by him whose ear 
thou hadst but lately healed ; 
and from thence wert dragged 



to the house of Caiaphas ; and 
there didst endure scorn, contumelies, blows, and intolerable insolence, and all this for man, who was thy 
enemy, and the cause of all thy sorrows. 

Blessed be thy name, O, holy Jesus, and blessed be thy mercy, who, when thy servant, Peter, denied 
thee, and forsook thee, and forswore thee, didst look back upon him, and by that gracious and chiding look 
didst call him back to himself and thee ; who wert accused before the high priest, and railed upon, and ex- 
amined to evil purposes, and with designs of blood ; who wert declared guilty of death for speaking a 
most necessary and most profitable truth ; who wert sent to Pilate and found innocent, and sent to Herod 
and still found innocent, and wert arrayed in white, both to declare thy innocence, and jet to deride thy 
person, and wert sent back to Pilate, and examined again, and yet nothing but innocence found in thee ; 
and malice round about thee to devour thy life, which yet thou wert more desirous to lay down for them 

than they were to take it from 
thee. 

Blessed be thy name, 0, holy 
Jesus, and blessed be that pa- 
tience and charity, by which, for 
onr sakes, thou wert content to 
be smitten, and scourged most 
rudely with unhallowed hands, 
till the pavement was purpled 
with that holy blood, and con- 
demned to a sad and shameful 
death, and arrayed in scarlet, 
and crowned with thorns, and 
loaded with the Cross, and 
bound with cords till the load 
was too great ; and yet didst 
comfort the weeping women, 
and didst more pity thy perse- 
secutors than thyself, and wert 
grieved more for the miseries of 
Jerusalem, to come forty years 
after, than for thy present passion. 

Blessed be thy name, O, holy 
Jesus, and blessed be that in- 



— 49 — 



comparable sweetness and holy 

sorrow which thou sufferedst, 

when thy holy hands and feet 

were nailed upon the Cross, and 

the Cross, being set in a hollo w- 

ness of the earth, did, in the fall, 

rend the wounds wider, and 

there, naked and bleeding, sick 

and faint, wounded and despised, 

didst hang upon the weight of 

thy wounds three long hours, ^^^^^^^^^mammm^mmmmmm 

■. 1 praying for thy persecutors, ' 

satisfying thy Father's wrath, reconciling the penitent thief, providing for thy holy and afflicted mother ; 
and when the fulness of thy suffering was accomplished, didst give thy soul into the hands of God ; and 
then thy body was transfixed with a spear, and issued forth two sacraments, water and blood, and thy body 
was composed to 'burial, and dwelt in darkness three days and three nights. 

Thus, O, blessed Jesus, thou didst finish thy holy passion with pain and anguish so great that nothing 
could be greater than it, except thyself and thy own infinite mercy ; and all this for man, even for me. 
And now, Lord, who hast done so much for me, be pleased to make it effectual to me. All this deserves 
more love than I have to give, but, Lord, do thou turn me all into love, and all my love into obedience, 
and then I hope thou wilt accept such a return as I can make. Teach me to live wholly for my Saviour, 
Jesus, and to be ready to die for Jesus. O, sweetest Saviour, hide my sins in thy wounds, and let me rise 

~ ^ in the life of grace, and abide ^ h^i— i— y— — 

and grow in it, till I arrive at 

the kingdom of glory. Amen. 

— Jeremy Taylor, D. D. 



CONVERSE WITH CHRIST. 

There, while I hear my Saviour — God, 
Count o'er the sins (a heavy load !) 

He bore upon the tree, 
Inward I blush with secret shame, 
And weep, and love, and bless the name 

That knew not quiet nor grief his own, 
but bore it all for me. 

But when he shows his hands and heart, 
With those deep prints of dying smart, 

He sets my soul on fire ; 
Not the beloved John could rest 
With more delight upon that breast, 
Nor Thomas pry into those wounds with 
more intense desire. 

— Isaac Watts. 



— 50 — 



UPON THE CROSS. 

1 I saw one hanging on a tree, 

In agony and blood, 
Who fixed His languid eyes on me, 
As near the Cross I stood. 

2 Sure, never till my latest breath 

Can I forget that look ; 
It seemed to charge me with his death, 
Though not a word he spoke. 



Alas ! I knew not what I did, 
But now my tears are vain ; 

Where shall my trembling soul be hid, 
For I the Lord have slain. 



A second look He gave, that said : 

" I freely all forgive ; 
This blood is for thy ransom paid : 

I die that thou may'st live." 



Thus while his death my sin displays 

In all its blackest hue, 
Such is the mystery of grace, 

It seals my pardon too. 



-Newton. 



ABIDE IN HIM. 

Cling to the Crucified! 

His death is life to thee — 

Life for eternity. 

His pains thy pardon seal ; 

His stripes thy bruises heal ; 

His Cross proclaims thy peace, 

Bids every sorrow cease. 

His blood is all to thee ; 

It purges thee from sin f 

It keeps thy conscience clean. 
Cling to the Crucified ! 

Cling to the Crucified ! 
His is a heart of love, 
Full as the hearts above ; 
Its depths of sympathy 
Are all awake for thee : 
His countenance is light, 
Even to the darkest night. 
That love shall never change — 
That light shall ne'er grow dim ; 
Charge thou thy faithless heart 
To find its all in Him. 

Cling to the Crucified ! 

— //. Bonar, D. D. 



— 51 — 



REMEMBER THE CROSS . 

Do I need a Saviour ? 

Ask Christ. He came down 

from Heaven. H43 knows what 

sin is, and what sin deserves. 

He can tell whether any of our 

' race can reach heaven unless 

: they enter by Him as the door. I , 

Ask this once crucified but now risen Jesus if you need a Saviour. He points you to the Cross, he points 
you to his own blood, which alone can wash away sin, and asks, What but your pressing need, your need 
that no other could supply, induced me to lay down my life 1 When we remember that without this 
extreme anguish of God's own Son, not the least sin could be forgiven, then its magnitude, its malignity 
begins to appear. Then a sense of utter helplessness to deliver ourselves overwhelms us. 

Can Jesus save me ? Remember that Jesus is a great Saviour. In earth beneath, in heaven above, is 
there any greater than he ? Is there any throne higher than his throne ? Is there any power greater than 
that which has been given to him for this very purpose, that he might save all that look to him ? Out of 
Christ, there can be no salvation. In Christ, there is plenteous redemption. 

How great is the sacrifice Christ, has made! Does the universe afford a greater ? Is anything so 

~~l precious as the blood of Christ ? | • ■ 

God has provided only one 

Saviour. The cost was immense, 

greater than that to form these 

worlds. He spoke, and they 

sprang into existence. But when 

a soul was to be saved, no mere 

word would suffice. The Son of 

God must descend from heaven, 

and be lifted upon the Cross. 

He must pour out his own blood, 

that he might be able to wash 

away sin. On his way to Geth- 

semane, though he not only felt 

the pressure of present trouble, 

but saw the greater sorrows be- 
yond — the bloody sweat in the 

garden, the scourging in the hall 

of Pilate, the agony on the 

Cross, and, more than all, the 

hiding of his Father's face, that 

called forth the heart-rending 

cry, "My God, my God, why .. 
: hast thou forsaken me '( " — yet 



— 52 - 



his thought rested not on Geth- 
seinane, or on Calvary, but to 
the victory far beyond these he 
looked, to the joy set before 
him. Thus did he come off con- 
queror in our behalf. 

Are you a great sinner I Then 
Jesus came to save you. The 
stars in his crown are Sinners 
Forgiven. Shall you shine 
there ? 

— A. W. Henderson. 



THE PRAYER OF CHRIST ANSWERED IN THE CROSS. 

Father, glorify thy name. 

The glory of God is so resplendent in all His works, that it has been observed by men of every coun- 
try, and kindred, and clime. Much more clearly is this glory seen by the eyes of angels. They raised the 
song of triumph when the foundations of the earth were laid. Before their far sighted vision, nature is 
spread out in one vast perspective — and all lit up with glory. They can see that golden chain, invisi- 
— — 1 ble to us, which binds together i — 

the different and distant parts 

of the creation, and links them 

all to the throne of God. They 

can see glory beaming from the 

minute, and from the magnifi- 
cent, from the solid earth and 

from the rolling sea. 

But nature, however radiant 

with the glory of its Author, 

must yield to grace. If creation 

was an expedient of pure good- 
ness — the overflowing of the 

love of God — much more was 

Redemption. In the birth of 

nature, angels were spectators 

merely — but in Redemption they 

were honored as messengers of 

God — Heralds of the glad ti- 

dings that the Son of God had 

come into the world — that Christ 

was born. 

In comparison with Redemp- 
tion, every other theme on which 



— 53 — 



angels meditate sinks in import- 
ance. The mystery of the Cross 
is the centre to which all the 
dispensations of God converge, 
and from which they are reflect- 
ed with a transcendant moral 
beauty and glory over the intel- 
ligent universe. 

In that " man of sorrows," in 
that bleeding, dj'ing victim — 

■ " The Principalities" of Heaven — — 

— — — 1 beheld the glory of God, as it is > ■ — — 

nowhere else revealed. The veil of flesh, and the guise of a servant, and the ignominy of the Cross, could 
not hide from their superior vision the true character, and the moral glory of the great Hero of man's 
redemption. On every feature of that work, the glory of its Author is inscribed ; and from every point of 
view, the majesty of power, the rectitude of justice, the immutability of truth, and the beauty of holiness 
beam forth with the reflected moral glory of Him in whom they all dwell. Thus the prayer is answered, 
" Father, glorify thy name." B. Yan Zandt, D. D. 



THE VOICE OF BLOOD. 



And to the blood of sprinkling, that speak- 
eth better things than that of Abel. 

— Heb., xii., 24. 

The crucifixion of the Son of 
God was a most foul and atro- 
cious deed of blood: but in con- 
sequence of a special and extra- 
ordinary arrangement by the 
Godhead, called the covenant of 
redemption, that blood spilled 
on Calvary received a new sig- 
nificancy, and spoke better 
things than blood had ever 
spoken before. The blood of 
sprinkling speaks better things 
to God than the blood of Abel 
did. That blood cried unto God 
from the ground for vengeance, 
but the blood of Christ sends 
aloft to the Almighty's throne 
a far different testimon}\ It 
speaks to God of a full satisfac- 
tion made to His law and justice. 



— 54 — 



for the sins of guilty men. It 

holds up before the glittering 
; sword of justice the cleft side 

and dripping hands of Jesus, 

and boldly asks, Is not this 

enough X It pleads for guilty 

sinners before the throne of 

Jehovah ; and louder than the 

roll of the eternal anthem, and 

the shoutings of the angelic 

choirs, its mighty and prevailing 

1 voice is heard, " Spare him, for I — . ■ - ' 

I have found a ransom." 

The blood of sprinkling is not only heard in the highest heaven speaking in the ear of God — but it 
speaks to men. It proclaims to them a new and living way of approach to God. The apostle tells us that 
this way is through the blood of Christ, and that Christ hath consecrated this way to us through the vail, 
that is to say, his flesh. No other blood ever spoke like it. No other voice has borne such tidings of great 
joy to sinners. Turn your anxious ear to every quarter ; go listen to the law ; go through the universe 
and summon all the voices which testify of the Almighty, which bespeak His might and majesty, His wisdom 
and goodness, and you listen in vain for any utterance of peace, and hope, and favor to a sinner, like that 
which is proclaimed in the blood of Calvary. That voice which speaks forth from the Cross of Jesus is the 
apocalypse of the world's redemption. It reverberates along the arches of the heavenly world, and call* 
■ - — — 1 forth a smile of reconciliation on \ ' : 

the face of the Almighty. It 

rolls over against Sinai, and lo, 

the dark clouds scatter, the 

lightnings cease to flash, and the 

thunders grow still. 

Listen to what the blood of 

Jesus says. 

—E.E. Seelye,D.D. 



CHRIST OUR SURETY. 

Christ hath made full stisfac- 
tion to God's justice, so now it is 
but dipping the pen in the blood 
of Christ and dashing out in- 
iquity. Nay, Christ himself 
hath blotted out even this hand- 
writing that was against us, and 
nailed it to his Cross. 

— Oulverwell. 



— 55 — 



THE HIGH ROCK. 

Lead me to the Rock that is Itiyher than I. 

— Psalms, lxi., 2. 

In the Sacred Scriptures the 

rocks are the symbol of rest for 

the weary, and of salvation of 

I the soul. In the Lord Jehovah 1 ; 

is the Rock of Ages. When the tribes of Israel were ready to perish of thirst in the desert, the waters that 
saved them came forth from the smitten rock. The loftiest hymns of praise which were written for the 
people of God, exult in the Lord Jehovah as the Rock of Salvation. The sweet singer of Israel always re^ 
joiced when he remembered the Rock of his strength. 

This language becomes still more sacred and significant to us when we look to Christ as the Rock of 
Ages. In times of affliction and discouragement we all feel that our life is a pilgrimage through a waste in 
which there is much want and many sorrows. And we never know what it is to feel secure and at rest 
until we find in Christ a hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest — until we flee to him 
as the traveler flees to the shadow of a great rock in a weary land When the Son of God appeared on 
earth for the redemption of the world, the first shelter of his feeble infancy was found in a cave of the rocks. 
— 1 — Daniel March, 1), D. i — " 



ROCK OF AGES. 

Christ is the Rock of Ages, to 
whom all weary, thirsty, wan- 
dering souls are invited to come 
for rest. No floods or storms 
can carry away that safe and 
sure retreat. Amid all the 
changes and agitations of the 
world, the Rock of our Salva r 
tion stands firm. The Rock of 
Ages stands to-day, amid all the 
wastes and conflicts of the world, 
offering rest to the weary, and 
the water of life to the perishing. 
— Daniel March, D. D. 

Rock of Ages ! cleft for me, 

Let me hide myself in thee : 

Let the water and the blood, 

From thy wounded side that (lowed, 

Be of sin the perfect cure ; 

Save me, Lord, and make me pure. 

— Toplady. 



CHRIST. 



He that does not love the Gocl 
who created him for heaven, 
merits hell. But he who does 
not love the God who descended 
from heaven to redeem him from 
hell, deserves a double hell. 



Adam's transgression spoiled the likeness of God in our soul. Christ's atonement not only renewed, 
but perfected that likeness. Through Christ and the unction of grace, it has received the finish of a beau- 
tiful oil painting, bringing out the resemblance, and giving to the whole picture the vivacity of life. 



Divinity dwelt personally in Jesus Christ. Hence the remarkable words of St. John, the Evangelist, 
who speaks as if his bodily senses had come in direct contact with the Godhead : " The Word was made 
flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory." 

No wonder that David, who styles the creation of the firmament the work of God's finger, should 
attribute the Redemption! to the arm of the Almighty, as if to intimate that a word sufficed to call the 
universe into being, but that all the power of Omnipotence was required to restore fallen man to grace. 



What was the first prayer 
uttered by Jesus on the Cross ? 
One of forgiveness for His ene- 
mies. To partake of the infinite 
merits of our Lord and Saviour, 
we should first ask of God for- 
giveness for our enemies. Our 

worst enemies are our sins. 
* * * 

Christ descended from heaven 
to cure men, who were mortally 
wounded by sin. He styled 
Himself the Physician, come to 
heal the sick. For this end, He 
allowed himself to be wounded 
and put to death. How hopeless 
must have been the condition of 
man since so extraordinary a 
remedy was needed. 

What a difference between us 
and Christ ! He freely chose to 
suffer ; He sighed with earnest 
longings for the Cross. We fly 



— 57 — 



from it, as much as we can. He 
left Heaven for earth, in order 
to suffer ; we decline to suffer, 
even for an eternal reward in 

Heaven. 

* * * 

Christ " humbled himself, be- 
coming obedient unto death, 
even the death of the Cross. 
Wherefore, God also hath exalt- 
ed Him, and hath given him a 
name which is above every 
name ; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and 
things under the earth." If we are moved by the spirit of Christ, we must perform our actions with hu- 
mility, obedience, and a desire of the Cross. All things in heaven and earth, will then aid us to serve God. 
* * * * * * » 

From a desire of plucking the forbidden fruit, Eve extended her hand toward the tree of knowledge. 
Christ extended his arms on the tree of the Cross to expiate Eve's transgression. But, O ! how infinitely 
stronger was his yearning desire to gather for us the precious fruit of life. — F. X. Weninger, D. D. 



"THEN ALL FOKSOOK 
HIM AND FLED." 

— Matt., xxvi., 56. 

Fled ? And from whom ? The man of woe 

Who at Gethsemane had felt 
Such pangs as bade the blood-drops flow 

And the crushed heart with anguish 
melt? 

They who were gathered round his board, 
Partook his love, beheld his power, 

Saw the sick healed, the dead restored, 
Failed they to watch one fearful hour ! 

All fled f Yet where was he who laid 

His head upon that sacred breast, 
By Friendship's holy ardor made 

A cherished and illustrious guest? 
He, too, who walked with Christ the wave, 

AVhen the mad sea confessed his sway, 
And strangely sealed her gaping grave, — 

Fled these forgetfully away ? 

Yes, all forsook their Master's side 

When foes and dangers clustered round, 
And when in bitterness he cried 

'Mid the dread garden's awful bound ; 
Yet firm and faithful near him stood 

The host of Heaven, a guardian train, 
Deploring man's ingratitude, 

And wondering at his Saviour's pain. 

— Mrs. Sigoumey. 



— 58 — 



THE MEASURE OF LOVE. 

As the Father hath loved me, so have I 
loved you. 



Loug: before the birth of time 



or of worlds, that love existed. 
It was coeval with eternity itself. 
Jesus says, " Therefore doth my 
Father love me, because I lay down my life !" God had an all-sufficiency in his love. So intense is his 
love for us, that he loved even his beloved Son more, because he laid down his life for the guilty ! 

No expression of love can be wondered at after this. Ah, how miserable are our best affections com- 
pared with His ! "Our love is but the reflection — cold as the moon ; His is as the sun." 



Shall we refuse to love him more in return, who hath first loved, and so loved us ? 



—MeDuff. 



God regards his children with more complacency than all the shining orbs of that starry firmament. 
They were bought at a price higher than would purchase the dead matter of ten thousand worlds. 

— T. Guthrie, D. D : 



REDEMPTION. 

What Adam bad, and forfeited for all, 
Christ keepeth now. who cannot fail or 
fall. 

— George Herbert. 

Redemption ! 'twas creation more sublime ; 
Redemption ! 'twas the labor of the skies ; 
Far more tJban labor, it was death in 
heaven ; 

A truth so strange ! 'twere bold to think 
it true, 

If not far bolder still to disbelieve. 

— Young. 

Onward as we trace 
God's oracles, Redemption is the point 
To which they all converge. 

— Samuel Hayes. 

When creatures had no real light 

Inherent in them, Thou didst make the 
sun 

Impart a lustre, and allow them bright; 
And in this, show what Christ hath 
done. 

— George Herbert. 



— 59 — 



THE UNSELFISH LOVE 
OF CHRIST. 

The Evangelist, Luke, special- 
ly instructs us concerning the 
amazing mercy and forbearance 

_______________________________________ of God, and the wonderful pity _ 

_______ 1 and compassion of his Son. He I 

is the Evangelist who specially tells of God's tender regard for those whom the world thinks least deserv- 
ing of its notice and His favor. Luke is the only one who notices the tender look of rebuke which Jesus 
gave to his erring disciple. He gives us many instances, not noticed by the other Evangelists, of our Re- 
deemers long-suffering with his enemies. He alone tells us of his tender, compassionate address, on his 
way to Calvary, to the daughters of Jerusalem — the city which had persecuted him to the death. Luke 
alone tells us of his prayer for his enemies, even while they were nailing him to the Cross. It is the ten- 
der, pitying, loving, rebuking look of the insulted Son of God which fills the heart with sorrow for sin. 
Wretches that we are, we will stand around thy Cross, O, thou bleeding Lamb, like thy murderers, but to 
mock and revile thee, unless thy look of love show us that thou art enduring all this agony for us. 

" Wliile I view thee, wounded, grieving, 

i Breathless on the cursed tree, | — ~~ ————————————— 

™ ' " Fain I'd feel my heart believing 

That thou suffered'st thus for me." 

With what earnestness will 
we sue for pardon and peace — 
when we can feel that thy look 
is full of pity and tenderness, 
and not of revenge and bitter- 
ness ! 

*' He thought not of the death he should 
die ; 

He thought not of the thorns he knew 
must pierce 

His forehead — of the buffet on the cheek— 

The scourge, the mocking homage, the 
foul scorn. 
* * * And Golgotha 

Stood bare and desert by the city wall, 

And in its midst, to his prophetic eye, 

Rose the rough Cross, and its keen ago- 
nies 

Were numbered all — the nails were in Mb 
feet— 

The insulting sponge was pressing on his 
lips — 

The blood and water gushing from his 
side — 



— 60 — 



The dizzy faintness swimming in hia 
brain — 

And while his own disciples fled in fear, 
A world's death-agonies all mixed in his ! 
Ay — he forgot all this. He only saw 
Jerusalem — the chosen, the loved, the 
lost ! 

He only felt that for her sake his life 

Was vainly given ; and, in his pitying love, 

The sufferings that would clothe the heav- 
ens in black 

Were quite forgotten. Was there ever 
love, 

■■■■■^"■■■^■■■■^■■^^■■J On earth or heaven, equal unto this ?" isaaammmmmmmmammmmammammmBmamsmammmam 

It was so like the Lamb of God, to rebuke with a look of love, rather than with words of harshness. 

—I). 1L Hill. 



"GOD IS GLORIFIED IN HIM." 

— John, xiii., 31. 

The light of the knowledge of God's glory is chiefly seen in the face of Jesus Christ. There we 
behold the brightness of his glory, the express image of his person. The only-begotten Son hath declared 
the Father, not only by his character and life, and teaching and doctrines, but especially in his sufferings 

- . . , and death ; and in them not only I — — 

by the graces which they dis- 
played, but the principles they 
implied and the purposes they 
accomplished. 

In his last prayer he said, "I 
have glorified thee on the earth ; 
I have finished the work which 
thou gavest me to do." He glo- 
rified God by the work he accom- 
plished when he expired on the 
Cross. And truly never was the 
glory of God so displayed as in 
this event ; and therefore it was 
typified from the foundation of 
the world; and therefore the 
whole gospel is called the 
preaching of the Cross ; and 
therefore an ordinance is estab- 
lished to show it forth ; and 
therefore the praises of the 
heavenly state regard the Lamb 
as worthy because he was slain ; 
and therefore the angels desire 



— 61 — 



to look into these tilings, as dis- 
covering more of the perfections 
of Deity than is to be seen in 
nature or providence. What a 
display of His wisdom was here ! 
What a display have we here of 
His holiness and justice ! With- 
out shedding of blood there 
could be no remission of sins. 
Rather than that sin should go 

unpunished, He required a surety, —————— —————— ^ 

and was pleased to bruise him, L- — — — — — — 

and put him to grief, and make his soul an offering for sin ; thus declaring his righteousness, that he might 
be just, and the justifier of the ungodly that believeth in Jesus. — Jay. 




IMITATION OF CHRIST. 

Jesus has many lovers of his heaven, but few bearers of his Cross ; many that desire to partake of his 
comforts, but few that are willing to share in his distress ; many companions of his table, but few of his 
hours of abstinence. Many follow him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of his bitter cup ; 

many attend with reverence on the glory of his miracles, but few follow the ignominy of his Cross. 

I * * * i — 

All who have conformed their 
lives to Christ crucified, will 
draw near to Christ, the Judge, 
with holy confidence. 

In the Cross is life, health, 
protection from every enemy. 
There is no redemption, no 
foundation for the hope of the 
divine life, but in the Cross. 
Take up thy Cross, therefore, 
and follow Jesus. He hath 
gone before, bearing that Cross 
upon which he died for thee, 
that thou mightst follow, patient- 
ly bearing thy own Cross, and, 
upon that, die to thyself for 
him ; and if we die with him, we 
shall also live with him : " If we 
are partakers of his sufferings, 
we shall be partakers also of his 
glory." 

— Thomas s a Kempis. 



— 62 — 



THE ATONEMENT. 

How little we really know of 
Christ while we leave out of 
sight, or throw into the back- 
ground, the Cross, and the Sac- 
rifice. Christ the great Teacher, 
Christ the mighty Master, Christ 
the Divine Prophet, is to us a 
separate Person. It is only when he dies — only when he is " lifted up from the earth," upon the Cross of 
shame and in the death of anguish — it is only then that he " sees of the travail of Ins soul," and is compen- 
sated and satisfied. 

The Death of Christ was a real and true " Propitiation for our sins." 

The Lord Jesus Christ made in his Death, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfac- 
tion for the sins of the whole world. 



What use have we made of his Cross and of his Atonement ? 



— O. J. Vaughan, D. D. 



OUK KANSOM. 

Our Advocate with God, 

He undertakes our cause, 
And spreads through all the earth abroad 

The victory of His cross 

— Charles Wesley. 

Lord, I believe thy precious blood — 
Which at the mercy seat of God, 
Forever doth for sinners plead — 
For me, e'en for my soul, was shed. 

— John Wesley, 

For me the burden to sustain, 

Too great, on thee, my Lord, was laid ; 
To heal me, thou hast borne the pain, 

To bless me, thou a curse wast made. 

— John Wesley. 

Alone the dreadful race he ran, 
Alone the wine-press trod. 

He dies and suffers as a man, 
He rises as a God. 

S. Wesley, Jr. 

'Tis done, the precious ransom's paid, 
"Receive my soul," He cries; 

See where He bows His sacred head ; 
He bows His head and dies. 

— Samuel Wesley. 



— 63 — 



THE THKEE CEOSSES 

On Calvary present to us an im- 
portant subject for consideration. 
They afford an image of the 
world, Christ in its midst ; but 
to the one he is set for the ris- 
ing, and for the falling of the 

| other — a savor of life unto life 1 , 

to the one, and of death unto death of the other. The tender mercy of Jesus there celebrates its triumph, 
and appears in the radiance of glorification. 

You see in the three Crosses, further, an actual exposition of the Saviour's words, " I am the Way, the 
Truth, and the Life !" For who is it that serves the malefactor on the right, as a bridge on which he may 
pass from a state of curse to that of grace ? Who is it that enlightens him, not less by his mere appear- 
ance, than by that marvelous light, whose rays penetrate into his inmost soul, and expel all the phantoms 
of delusion from him ? And lastly, who is it that takes from his bosom the consciousness of a state of 
death, and replaces it with the most blissful and vital hope % Is it not the thorn-crowned Sufferer who is 
the author of it all ? Finally, the scene on Calvary affords a representation of the boundless power and won- j 
derful efficacy of the merits of our great High Priest. 

— — — 1 Above the summit of Calvary, i — — ***** 

the three who were crucified 
bow their heads, and the great 
separation is accomplished. 

— Krummacher. 



WORTH OF THE SOUL. 

The real value of an object is 
that which one who knows its 
worth will give for it. He who 
made the soul knew its worth, 
and gave His life for it. 

— Jackson. 



I am crucified with Christ — ■ 
With him nailed upon the tree ; 

Not the cross, then, do I bear, 
But the cross it beareth me. 

Solemn cross on which I died, 
One with him, the crucified. 

— //. Bonar, D. D. 



— 64 — 



CONCERNING THE CROSS. 

An inscription was generally 
placed above the person's head, 
and briefly expressed his guilt. 
It was covered with white gyp- 
sum, and the letters were black. 
Others say, it was white with red 
letters. 

The word Cross was early used in Roman literature to represent any torture, pain, or misfortune. 
Christ adopted this use of the word when he says that they must be willing to take up their Cross and 
follow him, meaning they must be willing to endure such sufferings as the service of God may bring. After 
the death and resurrection of Christ, the Cross is spoken of as the representative of Christ's whole suffer- 
ings, from his birth to his death. As a symbol of Christianity, its doctrines and its duties, the Cross has 
become a familiar figure of speech in the expression of experimental Christianity, in the preaching of Chris- 
tian ministers, and in the hymns and songs of Christian poets. 

A common tradition assigns the perpetual shiver of the aspen to the fact of the Cross having been 
made of its wood. Lipsius thinks it was of oak, a common wood in Judea. Another legend says: 

"The foot is cedar, cypress forms the 
shaft, 

The arms are palm, the title, olive bears." 



— M'Clintock and Strong. 



CRUCIFIXION. 

When with deep agony his heart was 
racked, 

Not for himself the tear-drop dewed his 
cheek ; 

For them he wept, for them to Heaven he 
prayed,— 

His persecutors — "Father, pardon them; 
They know not what they do." 

— Charles Lamb. 



Well may the cavern depths of earth 
Be shaken, and her mountains nod ; 

Well may the sheeted dead come forth 
To gaze upon a suffering God ! 

Well may the temple-shrine grow dim, 
And shadows veil the Cherubim, 
When he, the chosen One of Heaven, 
A sacrifice for guilt is given. 

— J. G. Whittier. 



— 65 — 



V 



THE CEOSS REVEALING 
THE LOVE OF GOD. 

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
and God Himself, became man, 
in order to he able to suffer, and 
thus show us His love in a light 



and with a force strong enough 
to break even the hardest hearts, if they reflect ever so little. Jesus came upon earth to suffer. And how 
thoroughly He performed His task ! He began by clothing Himself with flesh like that of our sinful 
bodies. Can one conceive of such a depth of degradation, self-renunciation, and sacrifice, for the Lord of 
Glory, the Prince of Life, to descend to the wretchedness and misery of our poor nature, to accept all its 
humiliations, even unto the grave % " Being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal 
with God ; but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made 
in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient 
unto death, even the death of the Cross." 

He chose his sufferings for us voluntarily. He asked for them. Nothing obliged Him to the course 
He pursued. He did so to accomplish the will of His Father, but he did it of His own free will. 

— Adolphe Monod. 



THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 

If all our love were extin- 
guished, at Christ's love we 
might easily rekindle it. Not a 
word that He spoke, not a work 
that He did, not a passion that 
He suffered, but was an argu- 
ment, a character of His love. 
He brought love, He bought 
love, He exercised love, He be- 
queathed love, He died in love ; 
He is all love. 

— Sir Walter Raleigh. 



— 66 — 



FROM THE EARLY CHRIS- 
TIAN FATHERS. 

" Sit ye here, while I go and 
pray yonder T Giving in Him- 
self a pattern to ns, He taught 
us to ask of God and to lift up 
our minds to Him. As He took 
on Him our passions, that, by triumphing over them Himself, He might give us also the victory over them ; 
so now He prays to open to us the way to that lifting up to God, to fulfill for us all righteousness, to recon- 
cile His Father to us, to pay honor to Him as the First Cause, and to show that He is not against God. 

— Damascenus. 



He who had said, " Learn of me, for I am mxek and lowly of heart" now humbling Himself, falls 
on His face. But He shows His devotion in His prayer, and as beloved and well-pleasing to His Father, 
He adds, " Not as I will, but as Thou wilt," teaching us that we should pray, not that our own will, but 
that God's will, should be done. And as He began to have fear and sorrow, He prays accordingly that the 
cup of His Passion may pass from Him, yet not as He wills, but as His Father wills ; wills, that is, not 

according to His Divine and 
impassible substance, but accord- 
ing to His human and weak 
nature. 

— O rig en. 

He bare in His own body all 
the infirmities of us, His disci- 
ples, who should suffer, and 
nailed to his Cross all wherein 
we are distressed ; and therefore 
that cup cannot pass from Him 
unless He drink it, because we 
cannot suffer, except by His 
Passion. Thus on the tree of 
life, the salvation and life of all 
is suspended. 

— Hilary. 

The Lord prayed thrice, to 
teach us to pray for pardon of 
sins past, defense against pres- 
ent evil, and provision against 
future perils, and that we should 
address every prayer to Father, 



— 67 — 



Son and Holy Spirit, that our 
spirit, soul and body should be 
kept in safety. 

— Haban. 

Christ singly prays for all, as 
He singly suffers for all. 

— Jerome. 

The Lord did not suffer under 
a roof or in the Jewish Temple, 
that you should not suppose that 
He was offered for that people 
alone ; but without the city, without the walls, that you might know the sacrifice was common, that it was 
the offering of the whole earth, that the purification was general. 

— Chrysostom. 

Creation could not bear the outrage offered to the Creator; whence the sun withdrew his beams, that 
he might not look upon the crime of these impious men. 

— Pseudo- Chrysostom. I 

Thus the Source of living water is made to drink vinegar ; the Giver of honey is fed with gall ; For- 
giveness is scourged ; Acquittance is condemned ; Majesty is mocked ; Virtue is ridiculed ; the Bestower 
of showers is repaid with spitting. — Pseudo-Chrysostom. 



Yea, even the Cross, if thou 
consider it, was a judgment-seat : 
for the Judge being the middle, 
one thief, who believed, was 
pardoned ; the other, who 
mocked, was unforgiven ; a sign 
of what he would once do to the 
quick and the dead, place the 
one on his right hand, the other 
on his left. 

— Augustine. 

" They put on him a scarlet robe. And 
when they had platted a crown of thorns, 
they put it upon his head, and a reed in his 
right hand." 

— Matt., xxvii., 28-29. 

The Scribes and Priests had 
brought the charge against Him, 
that He claimed sovereignty over 
the J ewish nation ; hence, they 
put on Him a scarlet robe, to 
represent that purple fringe 
which kings of old used to wear ; 



— 68 — 



for the diadem, they put on Him 
a crown of thorns ; and for the 
regal sceptre, give Him a reed, 
and perform adoration to Him 
as a king. In the scarlet robe, 
He bears the bloody works of 
the Gentiles ; by the crown of 
thorns, He takes away the an- 
cient curse ; He held the reed in 
His hand, wherewith to write 

down the sacrilege of the Jews. 

— — -, — . — — — 1 — Jerome. ' 

Here we understand what Mark means by clothed Him with purple ; instead of the royal purple, 
this scarlet cloak was used in mockery ; and there is a shade of purple which is very like scarlet. That 
they took from off the Lord, in His passion, His own garment, and put on Him a colored robe, denotes 
those heretics who said that he had a shadowy, and not a real body. 

— Augustine. 

The utmost cruel outrage could do was put in practice against Christ ; and not one member only, but 
His whole body, suffered injuries ; His head, from the crown, the reed, and the buffetings ; His face, which 
.they spit upon ; His cheeks, which they smote with the palms of their hands ; His whole body, from the 
~ =■=—-— - | scourging, the stripping to put 

on the cloak, and the mockery of 
homage ; His hands, from the 
reed which they put into them 
in mimicry of a sceptre, as 
though they were afraid of omit- 
ting aught of indignity. 

— Ghrysostom. 

The Lord, having taken upon 
Him all the infirmities of our 
body, is then covered with the 
scarlet-colored blood of all the 
martyrs, to whom is due the 
kingdom with Him ; He is 
crowned with thorns, that is, 
with the sins of the Gentiles 
who once pierced Him. In the 
reed, He takes in His hand and 
supports the weakness and frailty 
of the Gentiles ; and His head 
is smitten therewith that the 
weakness of the Gentiles-, sus- 
tained by Christ's hand, may 



— 69 — 



rest on God the Father, who is 
His head. 

— Hilary. 

The reed was a mystery, sig- 
nifying that before we believed, 
we trusted in that reed of 
Egypt, or Babylon, or of some 
other kingdom, opposed to God, 
which He took that He might 
triumph over it with the wood 
of the Cross. With this reed 
they smite the head of Christ, because this kingdom ever beats against God the Father, who is the head of 
the Saviour. — Origen. 

By the scarlet robe is denoted the Lord's flesh, which is spoken of as red by reason of shedding of His 
blood ; by the crown of thorns, His taking upon Himself our sins, because he appeared in the likeness of 
sinful flesh. — Remigius. 

They smite the head of Christ with a reed, who speak against His Divinity,/and endeavor to maintain 
their error by the authority of the Holy Scriptures, which is written by a reed. They mock Him with 
adoration who believe on Him, but despise Him with perverse works. — Raban. 



THE DARKNESS AND 
DESERTION. 

What so troubled Jesus in the 
Temple? What threw him into 
that bloody sweat in the Gar- 
den? What drew from him 
these strong cryings for deliver- 
ance ? There was something 
more in that hour for which 
Jesus came into this world, 
something more in that cup 
which lie took in his trembling 
hands, than the mere bitterness 
of apprehended dissolution. 
Whence did that grief arise ? 
How came it to be so accumu- 
lated and condensed as to force 
from him those prayers in the 
Garden and that exclamation on 
the Cross ? It was because he 



— 70 — 



stood as our great Head and 

Representative, and suffered in 

our room and stead : " He was 

wounded for our transgressions, 

he was bruised for our iniqui- 
ties ;" he made " his soul an 

offering for sin ;" " he died, the 

just for the unjust, to bring us to 

God." Christ bore our sins in 

his own body on the tree. He 

^^^^ bore our griefs by sympathy. 

. — - 1 Our sorrows he carried, by mak- ' — 

ing them his own. Let us pause, adoring, wondering, praising that great love of our most gracious 
Saviour, which has a height, and a depth, a length, and a breadth in it, surpassing all human, all angelic 
measurement. 

The full bright sun of an eastern sky has been looking down on what these men are doing who have 
nailed Jesus to the Cross, and are standing mocking and gibing him. The mid-day hour has come ; when 
suddenly there falls a darkness which swallows up the light, and hangs a funeral pall around the Cross : — 
no darkness of an eclipse — that could not be as the moon then stood — no darkness which any natural cause 
whatever can account for. At the sixth hour, covering all in a moment with its dark mantle ; at the ninth 
hour, in a moment, lifting that mantle off: was it a darkness deep as that of moonless, starless midnight, 
wrapping the Cross so thickly round, that not the man who stood the nearest could see aught of the Suf- 

I ferer? 

Men would leave the Cruci- 
fied, exposed in shame and na- 
kedness to die ; but an unseen 
hand was stretched forth to 
draw the drapery of darkness 
around the Sufferer, and hide 
him from the vulgar gaze. 

— Wm. Hanna, LL. D. 



Upon the Cross he hung, and bowed the 
head, 

And prayed for them that smote, and 

them that curst, 
And drop by drop, his slow life-blood 

was shed, 

And his last hour of suffering was his 
worst. 

— H. H. Milman. 



— 71 — 



3. We thank thee for the grace 
Descending from above, 
That overflows our widest guilt, 
The eternal Father's love : 



THE CROSS AND THE 
CROWN. 

1. No blood, no altar now, 

The sacrifice is o'er; 
No flame, no smoke ascends on high ; 
The Lamb is slain no more. 

2. We thank Thee for the blood, 

The blood of Christ, thy Son ; 
The blood by which our peace is made, 
Our victory is won : 

4. We thank thee for the hope, 
So glad, and sure, and clear ; 
It holds the drooping spirit up 
'Till the long dawn appear: 



5. We thank Thee for the crown 
Of glory and of life ; 
'Tis no poor with' ring wreath of earth, 
Man's prize in mortal strife. 

— H. Bonar, D. D* 



THE IMAGE OF THE CROSS. 

— Since Christ embraced the Cross itself, i — - 

J T 

dare I 

His image, th' image of His Cross, deny ? 
Would I have profit by the sacrifice, 
And dare the chosen Altar to despise ? 
It bore all other sins ; but is it fit 
That it should bear the sin of scorning it? 
Who from the picture would avert his eye, 
How should he fly His pains Who there 
did die ? 

From me no pulpit, nor misgrounded law, 
Nor scandal taken, shall this Cross with- 
draw. 

It shall not, nor it cannot ; for the loss 
Of this Cross were to me another Cross. 
Better were worse ; for no affliction, 
No Cross, were so extreme as to have none. 
Who can blot out the Cross which th' in- 
strument 

Of God dewed on him in the Sacrament? 
Who can deny me power and liberty 
To stretch mine arms, and mine own Cross 
to be? 

Swim, and at every stroke thou art my 
Cross. 

The mast and yards are theirs whom seas 
do toss. 

Look down ; thou seest birds fly on 
Crossed wings. 

— Donne. 



— 72 — 



THE GREAT SUFFERER. 



There never were any other 
sorrows like those of Jesns. No 
other death parallel to his has 
ever been known in the uni- 
verse. Guilty men have suf- 
fered and died in great anguish 
of body and mind. But what 
means it that an innocent and holy person should pass through such an experience of shame and physical 
distress and unutterable horrors of soul ? 

Do you say that his last sufferings were merely incidental to his condition as a self-denying teacher 
and benefactor of sinful men ? But why did he not save himself from such a fate by praying to his Father 
in the hour of danger, as he said he might do, so as to bring to his rescue more than a hundred and twenty 
thousand angels ? And why, if he must die as a martyr, should he have been given up to such unspeak" 
able mental agonies % 

Do you say, then, as some have said, that he must carry his love for men to such a pitch of devotion 
as to submit to death at their hands, so as to touch their hearts and bring them to repentance for those sins 
that pursued him to his Cross and grave \ I answer that if the reformatory influence of his death had been 

all that was to be procured by 
his sufferings, he might have 
endured martyrdom sorrowfully 
indeed, but not under such a 
weight of crushing woes as came 
down upon his holy soul. ~No 
death of a mere philanthropist, 
sacrificing his life for the good 
of his enemies, ever resembled 
the death of Jesns, in point of 
excruciating and overpowering 
mental distress. The question 
still returns, How shall we ac- 
count for the overwhelming bil- 
lows of his final sorrows, and his 
loud shrieks of agony when the 
cloud of the closing scene was 
settling down upon his spirit ? 
The Apostle Peter tells us what 
those awful sufferings meant : 
"For Christ hath once suffered 
for sins, the just for the unjust, 
that lie miyht brinsc us to God." 
—R. W. Patterson, D D. 



— 73 — 



"THE LOVE OF CHEIST 
CONSTRAINETH US." 

What an imprisoned feeling 

the Son of God must have had 

during these thirty-three years ! 

What is it that constitutes im- 

prisonment ? Not the absolute I : 

smallness of the prison, but its relation to the sphere of life of the occupant. An animalcule is not impris- 
oned in a tiny pool of water. But put a fish out of the lake into it, and you will inflict all the horrors of 
imprisonment. There are people probably in the island of Elba, who would be quite content to live and 
die in it. But that did not make it the less a prison for the first Napoleon. Of all cases of imprisonment, 
there is not one half so strait, in proportion to the sphere of life which was exchanged for it, as that in 
which our Blessed Lord confined himself for thirty years. Who can measure the love which was expressed 
in that incarceration ? And yet, if you could, would you have the measure of his love ? Clearly not, for, 
from the whole tenor of the Word of God, it would appear that the mystery of His death was deeper still 
than the mystery of His life — that inconceivable as was the sacrifice of the Incarnation, that of the Cruci- 
fixion was greater and more terrible still. 

" 0, never, never can we know 
The depths of that mysterious woe." 

The darkening of the heavens, 
the rending of the rocks, the 
opening of the graves, were, as 
it were the shuddering of ex- 
ternal nature, as the great Re- 
deemer entered into a conflict, 
an agony, a woe, which must 
have been as much greater than 
anything which we ever have 
endured or could endure, as His 
nature is greater than ours. 
There are places where we are 
permitted, as it were, to stand 
upon the edge, and look down 
into the abyss, as when we hear 
him cry : " Father, if it be pos- 
sible, let this cup pass from me ;" 
and again : " My God, my God, 
why hast Thou forsaken me ?" 
But though we thus may look 
into the gulf, who is there that 
I would ever think to fathom it ? 



— 74 — 



And all this love was to his 
enemies ! 

—J.M. Gibson, D.J). 



SYMPATHY. 

It is an affecting thing to see a 

great man in tears! "Jesus 

wept/" It was ever his delight ] 

to tread in the footsteps of sor- L ____ 

row — to heal the broken-hearted — turning aside from his own path of suffering to " weep with those that 
weep." Think of the affecting pause in that silent procession to Calvary, when he turns round and stills 
the sobs of those who are tracking his steps with their weeping ! Think of that wondrous epitome of human 
tenderness, just ere his eyes closed in their sleep of agony — when filial love looked down on an anguished 
mother, and provided her a son and a home ! Ah, was there ever sympathy like this ! Son ! Brother ! i 
Kinsman ! Saviour ! all in one ! The majesty of Godhead almost lost in the tenderness of the Friend. 
But so it was, and so it is. 

Let us "go and do likewise." " Exercise your souls,'" says Butler, "in a loving sympathy with sor- 
row in every form. It is the relic of Christ in the world, an image of the Great Sufferer, a shadow of the 
Cross. It is a holy and venerable thing." McDuff. 



JUXTA CRUCEM. 

From the Cross the blood is falling, 
And to us a voice is calling 

Like a trumpet, silver-clear. 

Peace that precious blood is sealing, 
All our wounds forever healing, 
And removing every load. 

Love its fullness there unfolding, 
Stand we here in joy beholding 
To the exiled sons of men. 

God is Love ; — we read the writing 
Traced so deeply in the smiting 
Of the glorious Surety there. 

Cross of shame, yet tree of glory, 
Round thee winds the one great story 
Of this ever-changing earth. 

— H. Bonar, D. D. 



— 75 — 



LOOK TO CHRIST. 



A view of Christ on the Cross 
as the surest way to convert a 
heart of stone into a heart of 
fiesh. Your sins, however great, 
are pardonable. There is enough 
value in one drop of the 
Saviour's blood to atone for them 
all ; if that blood cannot wash your sins away — if its virtue is not sufficient to cancel your guilt, then the 
atonement is a failure ; and God is not true when he says " it cleanseth from all sin." 

There is life in CLrrist. He takes the dead sinner — dead by the stroke of the law — and breathes life 
into him. Jesus stands between you and the broken law, and says, Come unto me and be ye saved. For 
every violation of that law, he has paid double. The law has received compensation in Jesus' blood, and 
the believer is free. " Power of Prayer" by S. Irenceus Prime, P.P. 



Eighteen hundred years ago, robed in humanity, God himself came down. These blue skies, where 
larks sing, and eagles sail, were cleft with the wings, and filled with the songs of his angel train. 

Thomas Guthrie, D. P. 



INESTIMABLE VALUE 
OF THE SOUL. 



MO 



Jesus Christ was the great 
purchaser of souls, and so must 
needs know the truth of them. 
It was no ordinary price he paid 
for them, — " Ye were not re- 
deemed with corruptible things." 
Do you think that Jesus Christ 
would have laid down his own 
life, spent his own precious blood 
for them, except they had been 
very precious ? These words, 
" For what is a man profited," 
<&c, Matt., xvi., 26, are the 
words of Him that bought souls, 
the words of Jesus Christ, the 
great Redeemer of Souls, and he 
tells us that one soul is worth 
more than a world. 

— Gulverwell. 



— 76 — 



JESUS BEFORE PILATE. 

"Suffered under Pontius Pi- 
late" — so, in every creed of 
Christendom, is the unhappy 
name of the Roman procurator 
handed down to eternal execra- 
tion. Yet the object of intro- 

___ = __ = _ ======—=== I ducing that name was not to I . — — — ■ 

point a moral, but to fix an epoch ; and, in point of fact, of all the civil and ecclesiastical rulers before 
whom Jesus was brought to judgment, Pilate was the least guilty of malice and hatred, the most anxious, 
if not to spare his agony, at least to save his life. 

There was a three-fold effort on the part of Pilate, made with ever-increasing energy and ever-deepening 
agitation, to baffle the accusers and to set the victim free. He appeared before the Jews, and pronounced 
his first emphatic and unhesitating acquittal: "I find in him no fault at all." But the insatiate murderers 
twisted a green wreath of thorny leaves around the brows of Jesus in mimicry of the Emperor's laurel ; 
in his tied and trembling hands they placed a reed for sceptre ; from his torn and bleeding shoulders they 
stripped the white robe with which Herod had mocked him — which must now have been all soaked with 
blood — and flung on him some cast-off war-cloak from the Roman Praetorian wardrobe. Even now Pilate 

— 1 strove to save him ; and as Jesus | • 

stood beside him, with that 
martyr-form on the beautiful 
mosaic of the tribunal — the spots 
of blood upon his wreath of tor- 
ture, the weariness of his death- 
ful agony upon the sleepless 
eyes, the sagum of faded scarlet, 
darkened by the weals of his 
lacerated back, and dropping, it 
may be, its stains of crimson up- 
on the tesselated floor — even 
then, even so, in that hour of his 
extremest humiliation, and as he 
stood in the grandeur of his 
holy calm on that lofty tribunal 
above the yelling crowd, there 
shone all over him so Godlike a 
pre-eminence, so divine a noble- 
ness, that Pilate broke forth with 
1 that involuntary exclamation, 
j which has thrilled with emotion 
I so many million hearts — " Behold 
: the Man ! " — Farrar. 



— 77 — 



i 

i 

THE GARDEN. 

Gloom, sorrow and anguish 

hang over Gethsemane. 'Tis 

night. The voice of bird and 

beast is hushed. Evil is present 

— distress, and groaning, and 
■ — ■ : - - — ■ agon}', such as earth lias never . ... .. - ... . ■ - m 

witnessed — is there. We cannot " 
draw nigh without awe and amazement. Yet from Gethsemane goes forth the note of joy, the note of sal- 
vation to our world, for there the second Adam encountered our adversary in the strength of his power, 
conquered him, and recovered for man life eternal. It was befitting there should be some witnesses, some 
age to look upon the Son of Man in his sorrow, in his sore temptation, and tell to future generations what 
a conflict he endured, what a victory he achieved. He chose those who had been witnesses of his trans- 
figuration, to be the witnesses of his humiliation. Without one cheering ray, he is left to struggle by naked 
faith through this thick darkness. Not a single drop in the cup of trembling is spared. But from the 
darkness of Gethsemane light breaks forth. From those unutterable sorrows spring joy for thousands and 
millions of our race. The sorrow was but for a brief season. The joy is eternal. 

— A. W. Henderson. 



THE ATONEMENT. 

God's own Son, unblemished victim, gave 
Himself a sacrifice, and by his blood, 
Upon the Cross poured forth, washed out 
the stain 

Of primal sin. — Samuel Hayes. 

So Man, as is most just, 
Shall satisfy for man, be judged and die ; 
And dying, rise ; and rising, with him 
raise 

His brethren, ransomed with his own dear ! 
life. — Milton. 

Lamb of God ! Our Priest and Pastor, 

Who canst bid all evil cease, 
Ever dear and holy Master, 

Make our feeble love increase ! 
So that when we seek thee, owning 

That thy wrath is our deserts, 
Thou, blest Lord, at whose atonement, 

All iniquity departs, 
Mayest speak forth from thine enthrone- 
ment, 

To our rent and wearied hearts, 
; " Sinner, go in peace !" 

— C. D. McLeod. 



— 78 — 



CHRIST MADE PERFECT 
THROUGH SUFFERING. 

" The Son of Man came not 
to be ministered unto, but to 
minister, and to give his life a 
ransom for many." No servant, 
no toiling, • working, laboring 



man ever led the life of Jesus'in its unrest, in its homelessness, in its discomfort. From early morning until 
a late evening he was the Minister, he was the Teacher, he was the Physician, he was the Servant of all. 
No door was ever shut where he sate at meat. No humblest, most sinful, most outcast person was ever told 
that he was busy, that he was eating, or that he was at rest. "He came down from heaven not to do his 
own will." " His meat was to do the will of Him that sent him, and to finish His work." The business on 
which he came was serious even to severity. The Incarnate Word on his way to a Sacrifice of Propitiation, 
had no time and no heart for playfulness. We may read in the Gospel how once and again Jesus wept • 
we never once read that Jesus laughed. We read of the sigh of Jesus even in healing ; we read of the in- 
ward groan of Jesus as he drew near a grave which he was instantly to open : never do we find a smile 
passed over his face ; or that a sound of merriment fell from his lips. To him, at all events, jesting was 

not convenient. 

It became God to make Christ 
suffer. What was the life of 
Christ, but a life of suffering % 
In three-and thirty years he had 
done all, had obeyed, had toiled, 
had suffered, had atoned. 

He drank of that cup ; it was 
the cup not only of pain, not 
only of torture, not only of 
death — it was the hiding of a 
Father's countenance; it was 
death not only in human loneli- 
ness, but under Divine direction. 
In darkest, bitterest, uttermost 
desolation — did Christ our Lord 
" taste death for every man." 

And he could say, " Thy will 
be done." 

0. J. Vaughan, I). D. 



Thou, rather than thy justice should be 
stained, 

Did stain the Cross. — Young. 



— 79 — 



GETHSEMANE. 

Jesus knew that the awful 

hour of his deepest humiliation 

had arrived — that from this mo- 
ment till the utterance of that 

great cry with which he expired, 
^^^^— mmmmmm ^^—— mmmm - mm ^^^ nothing remained for him on ^ ^^^^^^^ 

— ' earth but the torture of physical ' i 

pain and the poignancy of mental anguish. All that the human frame can tolerate of suffering was to be- 
heaped upon his shrinking body ; every misery that cruel and crushing insult can inflict, was to weigh 
heavy on his soul ; and in this torment of body and anguish of soul, even the high and radiant serenity of 
his divine spirit was to suffer a short but terrible eclipse. But one thing remained before the actual strug- 
gle, the veritable agony, began. He had to brace his body, to nerve his soul, to calm his spirit by prayer 
and solitude to meet that hour in which all that is evil in the Power of Evil should wreak its worst upon 
the Innocent and Holy. And he must face that hour alone ; no human eye must witness, except through 
the twilight and shadow, the depths of his suffering. Even the society of the three chosen and trusted dis- 
ciples was more than he could bear. A grief beyond utterance, a struggle beyond endurance, a horror of 
great darkness, a giddiness and stupefaction of soul overmastered him. " My soul," he said, "is full of 

t t ' I anguish, even unto death." I ~ 

" Stay here and keep watch." 

Reluctantly he tore himself 

away from their sustaining ten- 
derness and devotion. And 

there, until slumber overpowered 

them, they were conscious of 

how dreadful was that parox- . 

ysm of prayer and suffering 

through which he passed. They 

saw him sometimes on his knees, 

sometimes outstretched in pros- 
trate supplication upon the 

damp ground ; they heard sounds 

of murmured anguish in which 

his humanity pleaded with the 

divine will of his father. 

"Abba, Father, all things are 

possible unto Thee ; take away 

this cup from me ; nevertheless, 

not what I will, but what Thou 

wilt." 

And whence came all this 
agonized failing of heart, this 



— 80 — 



fearful amazement, this horror 
of great darkness, this passion 
which almost brought him down 
to the grave before a single 
pang had been inflicted upon 
him — which forced from him 
the rare and intense phenome- 
non of a blood-stained sweat — 
which almost prostrated body, 
and soul and spirit with one 
final blow ? The Chri stian 
hardly needs to be told that it 
was no such vulgar fear which forced from his Saviour that sweat of blood. No, it was something infinitely 
more than this. It was the burden and the mystery of the world's sin which lay heavy on his heart ; it 
was the tasting, in the divine humanity of a sinless life, the hitter cup which sin has poisoned ; it was the 
bowing of Godhead to endure a stroke to which man's apostasy had lent such frightful possibilities. It was 
the sense, too, of how frightful must have been the source of evil in the Universe of God which could ren- 
der necessary so infinite a sacrifice. . — Farrar. 



DELIVERANCE FOR MAN. 



In peopling the worlds which 
He had made, God created two 
races of intelligent and account- 
able agents — angels and men. 
Disaffection entered both races. 
In the paternal bosom of God 
there was a purpose of mercy. 
A great Deliverer is to come 
to open up a way of escape 
for the guilty. But for whom 
shall he come? For fallen an- 
gels, or fallen men ? Reason 
would say, for angels, since they 
are the eldest offspring of His 
love. But love says, for men, 
since that will be a more im- 
pressive display of Divine good- 
ness — a greater stoop of infinite 
compassion — a nobler achieve- 
ment of mighty love ! And so 
it was. That Deliverer came, 
rich in mercy, and mighty to 
save. 

— B. Van Zandt, D. D. 



— 81 — 



THE SINLESS SUFFERER. 

Our Saviour stood by himself 
as an innocent and holy sufferer. 
Fain and anguish of heart are 
not uncommon in this world of 
ours. They enter more or less 
into the lot of all mortals. And 
if we speak simply of deep dis- 
tress and heavy woes, we need not go far, in any community on earth, to find one or two persons who know 
what they are by the teachings of a bitter experience. Who is alone in human society merely as an heir of 
ills and griefs ? Had our Saviour been a man of like character with other men, it would have been no 
strange thing that he should " bear griefs and carry sorrows." He would not have been separated from 
all other men in human history, if he had been tortured and put to death under false accusations by his 
enemies, while yet an imperfect and erring member of a sinful race. But who else, among all human suf- 
ferers, ever knew the depths of bodily and mental agony, while conscious of no ill-desert at all ? with no 
shadow of moral stain upon his soul ? like a lamb without blemish and without spot, being absolutely holy, 
harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners ? Come what may of grievous afflictions upon any of us, we 
must still regard them as being, if not retributive punishments, at least needful chastisements, to purge 

away the dross of our souls, and . 

deliver us by discipline from ex- 
posure to the righteous penalties 
that hang over us. But Jesus 
Christ was not only without 
actual sin, but free from all cor- 
ruption of inclinations and de- 
sires, voluntarily good and holy, 
and positively meritorious and 
well-deserving as a subject of 
law and moral government. Of 
this he was perfectly conscious 
all the way through the period 
of his humiliation, and while he 
was crushed to the earth under 
the burdens of the garden, and 
tortured to death on the hill of 
Calvary. What other con- 
sciously sinless and holy being 
ever passed through a like expe- 
rience? What pure angel ever 
went under a cloud of grief? On 
what occasion did our first pa- 
rents, before their apostasy, ever 



— 82 — 



drink from any bitter cup ? We 
can well conceive with what new 
emphasis the spotless Lamb of 
God may have accommodated to 
his own use, in his dark hours, 
the weeping prophet's words, 
" Was ever sorrow like unto my 
sorrow ?" 

Did ever snch billows rise 
over snch a soul of more than 
heavenly purity and holiness ? 
The history of the universe, so 
far as we know, can furnish no parallel to these sufferings of the holy Redeemer. He was made under the 
law and kept it, without one shade of deviation from its letter or its spirit. And yet he was led as a lamb 
to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He was op- 
pressed and afflicted, and was cut off from the land of the living : because it pleased the Lord to bruise him 
and put his soul to grief. Who could sympathize with such a sufferer from any like experience ? Who 
could have said to him in the dreadful hours of his anguish, " I know what it is to suffer without any con- 
sciousness of sin or demerit ; for I have gone down, as a pure spirit, into the same dark valley through 
which yon are now passing ?" Jesus was absolutely alone in that amazing experience, and no other being 
ever will come into a like personal knowledge of sinless and holy suffering. 

— R. W. Patterson, D. D. 



CHRIST REVEALED. 

The bunch of grapes that the 
spies of the children of Israel 
carried from the land of promise, 
was borne by two strong men 
upon a pole or staff ; he that 
went before could not see the 
grapes, but he that was behind 
might both see and eat them. 
So the fathers, patriarchs and 
prophets of the Old Testament 
did not, in the like manner, see 
the bunch of grapes, that was 
the Son of God made man, as 
they that came behind, — the 
Evangelists, Apostles, Disciples 
under the New Testament, — 
both saw and tasted it, after 
John had showed this grape. 
" Behold the Lamb of God, that 
taketh away the sins of the 
world." — Martin Luther. 



— 83 — 



THE SWORD AND THE 
CUP. 

" Lord, shall we smite with 
the sword ?" The reply is, 
" Put up thy sword again into 
its place, for all they that take 

. _ I the sword, shall perish with the | 

sword." " The cup, which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it ?" " Or thinkest thou that I 
cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall give me more than twelve legions of angels ?" But how then 
should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must he ? 

His language still is, " The cup which ray Father has given me, shall I not drink it ?" Great and 
momentous words ! A cup is a vessel which has its appointed measure, and is limited by its rim. The 
Saviour several times refers to the cup that was appointed for him. By it, he understood the bitter draught 
of his passion, which had been assigned hirm We know what was in the cup. All its contents would have 
been otherwise measured out to us by divine justice on account of sin. 

" Who spared not His own Son, but freely gave him up for us all." " The Lord laid on him the in- 
iquities of us all." " I will smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." "Christ hath redeemed 

1 us from the curse of the law, be- ■ 

ing made a curse for us." " God 
made him to be sin for us who 
knew no sin." All that man- 
kind have heaped up to them- 
selves against the day of God's 
holy and righteous wrath — all 
are united and mingled in this 
cup, and foment together in a 
horrible potion. " Shall I nof" 
drink this cup ?" asks the Sav 
iour. " Yes," we reply, " empty 
it, beloved Immanuel ! we will 
kiss thy feet, and offer up our- 
selves to thee upon thine holy 
altar !" He has emptied it, and 
not a drop remains for his peo- 
ple. The satisfaction he ren- 
dered was complete, the recon- 
ciliation effected. " There is 
now no condemnation to them 
that are in Christ Jesus. The 
curse no longer falls upon them, 
j " The chastisement of our peace 



— 84 — 



Strive that all your disposi- 
tions grow like tendrils on the 
Cross of the Lord. This is the 
right lattice-work on which to 
train the branches of Christ. 

F. Arndt. 



lay upon him, and by his stripes 
we are healed," and nothing now 
remains for us but to sing Hal- 
lelujah ! 

— Kmmmacher . 



MY HIGH PKIEST. 

I need no priest save Him who is above ; 

No altar but the heavenly mercy-seat ; 
Through these there flows to me the par- 
doning love, 

And thus in holy peace my God I meet. 

I need no blood but that of Golgotha ; 

No sacrifice save that which on the tree 
Was offered once, without defect or flaw, 

And which, unchanged, availeth still 
for me. 

I need no vestments save the linen white 
With which my high priest clothes my 

filthy soul. 
He shares with me His seamless raiment 

bright, 

And I in Him, am thus complete and 
whole. 

I leave to those who love the gay parade, 
The gold, the purple, and the scarlet 
dye ; 

Mine be the robe which cannot rend or 
fade, 

Forever fair in the eternal eye. 

I need no pardon save of Him who says, 
" Neither do I condemn thee, go in 
peace ;" 

My Counsellor, Confessor, Guide, he is, 
My joy in grief, in bondage my release. 

Forgiven through Him who died and rose 
on high, 

My conscience from dead works thus 
purged and clean, 
I serve the service of true love and joy, 
And live by faith upon a Christ unseen. 

l —H. Bonar, D. D. 



How much is laid upon Jesua 
while on the Cross ! The guilt 
of thousands of years, the world's 
future — the salvation of mill- 
ions ! 

— Krummacher. 



— 85 — 



F 



PHYSICAL CAUSE OF THE 
DEATH OF CHRIST. 

" Reproach hath broken my heart." 

' 1 The grief that does not speak 
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids 
it break." 

After a quarter of a century's 



reading and reflection, I venture to suggest — that the immediate physical cause of the death of Christ was 
the rupture of his heart, induced by the inner agony of his spirit. That strong emotion may of itself prostrate 
the body in death, is a familiar fact in the history of the passions. Joy, or grief, or anger, suddenly or 
intensely excited, have been often known to produce this effect. In later times, the discovery has been 
made, by post-mortem examinations, that in such instances the death resulted from actual rupture of the 
heart. That organ, being peculiarly affected by the play of the passions, has been found in such cases to 
have been rent or torn by the violence of its action. The blood issuing from the fissure thus created has 
filled the pericardium, and, by its pressure, stopped the action of the heart. 

The fact is, that death by crucifixion was so slow, that in no case, where the person crucified was in 
ordinary health and vigor, did they terminate in twelve hours. Almost invariably they survived the first 

twenty-four hours, lived gener- 
ally to the second, and occa- 
sionally to the fifth or sixth day. 

— Dr. Stroud. 

In the case of Christ, the pe- 
riod was too short. Again, the 
crucified died under a lingering 
process of gradual exhaustion, 
weakness, and faintness. On 
the contrary, Christ cried with a 
loud voice, and spoke once and 
again, within a few minutes of 
his dissolution. Other attendant 
phenomena at the time of his 
death were different from those 
of crucifixion. I am stronly im- 
pressed with the belief that the 
immediate cause of the death of 
our blessed Saviour was — speak- 
ing medically — laceration or rup- 
ture of the heart. In favor of 
such a doctrine there is a very 
high amount of circumstantial 



— 86 — 



probability. Our wonderment 
at the stupendous sacrifice only 
increases when we reflect that 
he was ultimately "slain" not 
by the effects of the anguish of 
his corporeal frame, but by the 
mightier anguish of his mind ; 
the fleshly walls of his heart be- 
coming rent and riven, as for us 
"He poured out his soul unto 
death." 

— Sir J. Y. Simpson, M. D. 



All the incidents attending the death of Christ are entirely accounted for by the hypothesis of rupture 
of the heart. Nothing else will explain the separate escape of blood and water from a wound in that 
region. The various cases of rupture of the heart from mental emotion, with similar separation of the 
watery and the red parts of the blood, collected by Dr. Stroud, and his cases of bloody sweat, form an 
extremely interesting monument of careful research. The treatise is interesting as an intelligent explana- 
tion of the incidents themselves, and, still more, as a new illustration of the awful agony which our Re- 
deemer must have suffered. — John Struthers, M. D., F. R. C. S. 

If common earthly sorrow has broken other human hearts, why may not that sorrow, deep beyond all 

other sorrow, have broken his ? 
We rest in the belief that such 
was the bitter agony of the 
Redeemer's soul as he hung upon 
the Cross, that — unstrengthened 
now by any angel from heaven, 
as in the Garden, his heart was 
broken, and in this way the tie 
that bound body and spirit to- 
gether was dissolved. 

— Wm. Flanna, D. D. 



On the tree of life, the salva- 
tion and life of all is suspended. 

— Hilary. 

Turn to Christ, your longing eyes, 
View his bloody sacrifice ; 

See, in Him, your sins forgiven, 
Pardon, holiness and heaven; 

Glorify the King of kings, 

Take the peace the Gospel brings. 

— Rowland Hill. 




— 87 — 



THE CROSS AND THRONE. 

1 The Cross it standeth fast, — 

Hallelujah ! 
The winds of hell have blown, 
Yet 'tis not overthrown ; 

Hallelujah ! 
It shall stand forever. 



2 It is the old Cross still, — 

Hallelujah I 
On which the Living One 
Did for man's sin atone ; 

Hallelujah t 
It shall stand forever. 



3 Old Cross, on thee I lean, — 

Hallelujah ! 
Old, and yet ever new, 
I glory still in you ; 

Hallelujah ! 
Thou shalt stand forever. 



4 Beneath thy shade I sit, — 

Hallelujah ! 
0, tree of life divine, 
My refuge, even mine ; 

Hallelujah J 
Thou shalt stand forever I 



6 The blood is on thee yet, — 

Hallelujah ! 
The blood that maketh clean 
The soul from stain and sin ; 

Hallelujah ! 
Thou shalt stand forever. 



6 And yet beyond thee still, — 

Hallelujah ! 
I look and see a throne, 
Christ' s Throne and mine in one ; 

Hallelujah ! 
Throne and Cross forever. 

— H. Bonar, D. D. 



— 88 — 



L 



FACTS CONCERNING 
CRUCIFIXION. . 

Crucifix (Latin crucifixum ; 
from cruci, to the Cross, and 
jixum, fastened), a representa- 
tion of Christ on the Cross, exe- 
cuted in wood, ivory, metal, or 
other hard material. 

Until the 11th century, Christ was represented as living, and usually with his head crowned with some 
symbol of his triumphal resurrection. His head was erect, his eyes open, indicating his divine nature, 
which is not subject to death ; or, more probably, his triumph over his death. Nearly all the great artists 
of the Middle Ages have painted the scene of the crucifixion, these being often their master-pieces. 

Crucifixion was a mode of punishment among the early Egyptians, the invention of which is tradition- 
ally ascribed to Semiramis. It was happily abolished by Constantine, probably towards the end of his reign. 
The scarlet robe, crown of thorns, and other insults to which our Lord was subjected, were illegal. 
The physical sufferings endured are: 1. The unnatural position and violent tension of the body, 
which cause a painful sensation from the least motion. 2. The nails, being driven through parts of the 

hands and feet, which are full of 
nerves and tendons, create the 
most exquisite anguish. 3. The 
exposure of so many wounds 
and lacerations brings on inflam- 
mation, and every moment in- 
creases the poignancy of suffer- 
ing. 4. In the distended parts 
of the body more blood flows 
through the arteries than can be 
carried back into the veins, 
hence the head becomes pressed 
and swollen. This general ob- 
struction of circulation which 
ensues, causes an internal ex- 
citement, exertion, and anxiety 
more intolerable than death it- 
self. 5. The inexpressible mis- 
ery of gradually increasing and 
lingering anguish. 6. Burning 
and raging thirst. To all of 
this was added the anguish of 
mind produced by the over- 
powering burden of our sins. 



— 89 — 



He had wrestled with mental 
agony till one of the rarest phe- 
nomena had been caused — a 
bloody sweat. He must have 
felt to the most acute degree of 
intensity, all the mental aggra- 
vation of his punishment, and 
the distress of his pious mother, 
and his few faithful friends. 

M' 'Clintock and Strong. 



A GREAT HIGH PRIEST. 



Great High Priest, we view Thee stooping 
With our names upon Thy breast ; 

In the garden groaning, drooping, 
To the ground in horrors prest. 

Angels see with sad amazement, 

Their Creator suffer thus ; 
Oh, be ours, deep heart-abasement ; 

Lord, we know 'twas done for us. 



Now into that garden lead us, 
There to see Thy bloody sweat, 

Tho' Thou from the curse hast freed us, 
We the cost may ne'er forget. 

Be Thine agonies rehearsed 

By the Spirit in our ears, 
Till, beholding whom we pierced, 

Melt our hearts in grateful tears. 



« THEY CRUCIFIED HIM." 

O, Come and mourn with me awhile ; 

Oh, come ye to the Saviour's side; 
Oh, come, together let us mourn ; — 

Jesus, our Lord, is crucified ! 

Have we no tears to shed for him 

While soldiers scoff, and Jews deride T 

Ah ! look how patiently He hangs ! — 
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified 1 

How fast his hands and feet are nailed I 
His throat with parching thirst is dried ; 

His failing eyes are dimmed with blood; — 
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified ! 

Come, let us stand beneath the Cross ; 

So may the blood from out his side 
Fall gently on us, drop by drop ; — ■ 

Jesus, our Lord, is crucified 1 

Seven times he spake seven words of love ; 

And all three hours his silence cried 
For mercy on the souls of men ; — 

Jesus, our Lord, is crucified ! 

A broken heart, a fount of tears ; 

Ask, and they will not be denied ; 
Lord Jesus, may we love and weep, 

Since Thou for us art crucified ! 

— Frederick U. Faber. 



On the Cross, Thy body broken, 
Cancell'd every legal charge ; 

Pleading this availing token, 
Guilty souls are set at large. 

Lord, we fain would trust Thee solely, 
'Twas for us Thy blood was spilt ; 

Suffering Saviour, take us wholly, 
Take and make us what Thou wilt. 

— Moravian. 




— 90 — 



KING OF THE JEWS. 

This title, written in" three lan- 
guages, signifies that our Lord 
was Xing of the whole world ; 
practical, natural and spiritual. 
The Latin denotes the practical ; 
because the Roman empire was 
the most powerful and best- 
managed one. The Greek the physical ; the Greeks being the best physical philosophers. And, lastly, the 
Hebrew, theological; because the Jews had been made depositaries of religious knowledge. Theophylact. 

The title npon our Lord's Cross was written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. These three were the lan- 
guages most known there : the Hebrew, on account of being used in the worship of the Jews ; the Greek, 
in consequence of the spread of Greek philosophy ; the Latin, from the Roman empire being established 
everywhere. — St. Augustine. 



CHRIST'S CONDESCENSION. 

" The word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." There is a majestic condescension in these few words 
that nothing can equal. He was made man. By himself, by his friends and disciples, by his enemies and 

persecutors, Jesus Christ was 
spoken of as a proper human 
But he had large ex- 



being. 



perience of human suffering. 
His lot was one of severe labor, 
poverty, weariness, hunger and 
thirst. While he mingled in 
the common sociability of life, 
he sustained a weight of inward 
anguish which no mortal could 
know. He looked forward to 
the accumulation of suffering 
which he knew would attend his 
last hours, with a heart exceed- 
ingly sorrowful, even unto death, 
but with a resigned resolution, a 
tender and trembling constancy, 
unspeakably superior in moral 
grandeur to the stern bravery of 
the proudest hero. Thus he 
died, but rose again, that he 
might be the Lord of both the 
dead and the living. 

— Dr. Pye Smith. 



— 91 — 



SIMON BEARING THE 
CEOSS. 

In the course of a few hours 

Christ had taken many a weary 

and painful step. From the 

communion-chamber he had 

I walked to the garden of Geth- I 

semane ; from Gethsemane he was hurried away, bound as a prisoner, to Annas ; from Annas to Caiphas ; 
from Caiphas to Herod ; from Herod back again to Pilate ; so that he had already traversed a great part 
of Jerusalem. But he must take one melancholy walk more : it is from the judgment-hall to Golgotha. 
He knew that his hour was come, and was ready to welcome its approach. He was not conveyed to the 
place of execution, but walked. Among the Romans, the criminal carried his Cross. It was to intimate 
he was the author of his own punishment, and seemed to say to him, " Hast thou not procured this unto 
thyself ?" In the case of Jesus, the imposition was not only humiliating but painful, owing to the bruises 
and soreness produced by the scourge. Yet, thus was he pressed with the heavy load, and had to exert all 
his strength to draw along the instrument of his death ; and considering all his previous agony and fatigue, 
no wonder he was found unequal to the continuance of the task. 
1 Hence the relief afforded him. 

He had drawn the burden 

through the streets, and was 

now between the city gate and 

the foot of Calvary, in the as- 
cending of which his difficulty 

would be increased. Here the 

procession met Simon of Cyrene, 

a city of Lybia, a thousand miles 

distant from Jerusalem. He 

was coming up from the coun- 
try, either to do business or to 

attend the Passover. He might 

have been a secret disciple of 

Jesus. In one place it is said 

they "compelled" him. If for 

a moment he discovered a little 

reluctance, he soon felt enough 

not only to make him willing to 

yield, but to enable him to re- 
joice that he was counted worthy 

to suffer shame for his name. 

And is not the same thing re- 
quired of us ? Has not Jesus 



— 92 — 



said, " Whosoever doth not bear 
his Cross, and come after me, 
cannot be my disciple ?" We, 
too, at first, may be ready to 
shrink back, but further experi- 
ence induces us cheerfully to 
deny ourselves, and to go forth 
to him without the camp, bear- 
ing his reproach. We see him 
before us, dignified and holy, 
enduring; the curse for us and 



leaving us only " this light af- 
fliction, which is but for a moment, and which worketh out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight 
of glory." 



1 " We tread the path he trod ; 
We bear the Cross he bore ; 
And every thorn that wounds our feet 
His temples pierced before. 



Oh ! patient, spotless Lamb, 
My heart in patience keep, 

To bear the Cross, so easy made, 
By wounding thee so deep." 



-Jay. 



THE LOVING CUP. 

Come, drink ye, drink ye, all, of it, 

Pale children of a King ; 
No poison mingles in the draught, 

So, while ye suffer, sing. 
'Tis love's own Life hath won it us, 

Christ's love hath pressed the brim, — 
Come, drink ye, drink ye, all, of it, 

In fellowship with him. 

Those hands, once bleeding on the Cross, 

Are now outstretched to bless ; 
He draws thee closer to his heart 

For that draught's bitterness ; 
He hears thy faintly sobbing breath, 

He marks each quivering limb ; 
He drank a cup for thee alone — 

Child ! drink it now with him. 



•tv ■ 



Let earth bring forth its bitter herbs, 

Soon all their power shall cease ; 
Come tribulation, if it will, 

With Christ's abiding Peace. 
I take the cup, the Loving Cup — 

Thrice-blessed shall it be ; 
I would not miss one gift, 0, Lord, 

Thy blood hath bought for me ! 

— Anna Shipton. 



— 93 — 



GLORYING IN THE CROSS. 



The story of the Agony and 
the Betrayal, of the Rejection 
and the Crucifixion, is found in 
the words of the Evangelists, 
always calm through their ex- 
ceeding depth of feeling, often 
silent through their reverence. 
The roll of Prophecy tells us what that Cross was when seen through the mists of futurity. The Apostles 
show us yet more plainly what it was, when seen close at hand, and imprinted on the whole of life's con- 
sciousness. And in our Worship, we pour out before God our conviction of what the Cross is to us in the 
present. 

The Cross has been the chosen, prized, and beloved emblem of Christendom. It is often found rising 
over the Christian Sanctuary. You see it ornamented in richness, and wreathed into forms of beauty. It 
has dictated the form of some of our noblest Christian churches. 

It was once an emblem of shame, all and more than all that the gallows is to us ; but now it is the 
sacred form which men delight to enrich with their jewels and their gold, or even to mould to lovely shapes, 
in which its own roughness seems almost lost. Outwardly, at least — would that it were more so inwardly ! — 

all Christendom has gloried in 
the Cross. 

— Alfred Barry, D.D. 



GLORYING ONLY IN THE 
CROSS. 

—Gal., vi., 14. 

That Cross which kindled 
such an enthusiasm in the mind 
of Paul was nothing else than 
the sacrificial offering of the in- 
carnate Redeemer, for the ex- 
piation of our guilt. That Cross 
which he dwelt so much upon in 
his Epistles, was a mighty enter- 
prise accomplished in the cruci- 
fixion of the Son of God. 

The figure of crucifixion which 
the Apostle employs, suggests 
the painfullness of the separat- 
ing process. It brings to our 



— 94 — 



view a victim pierced and man 
gled, stretched upon a Cross, en- 
during most excruciating agony 
until death. Paul, in describ- 
ing the separation of the believer 
from the world, as a crucifixion, 
reminds, us that it is one fraught 
with painful labor, and bitter 
trials. It is no easy task to get 
away from this enticing and en- 
snaring world. It is a painful 
process, not the work of a mo- 
ment, but of years. It is "dying daily.'''' 

Let us, like true knights of the Cross, follow the Apostle, and stand, if need be, alone, as its avowed 
champion. With the Cross in view, this life seems but the vestibule of another life. 'Tis by the hopes of 
the Cross that you can be buoyed up on the billows of affliction, and comforted in the gloom of bereave- 
ment — it will cheer the spirit with the calm anticipation of eternal life in the sad hours of dissolution. 

— E. E. Seelye,D.D. 



THE DIVINE SACKIF1CE. 



Having therefore, brethren, boldness to 
enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. 

I know not how we could 
have had more strongly im- 
pressed upon us the solemn, the 
august importance of that amaz- 
ing act of sacrifice, by which 
our Lord Jesus Christ gave 
Himself for the sins of the 
world. Whenever we use our 
sacerdotal privilege of entering 
God's Presence, we must do so 
in the blood of Jesus — on the 
strength of what he has done 
for us — in virtue of his Death. 
Perhaps we shall know — or per- 
haps we shall never know — ex- 
actly how Christ atoned. I do 
not see that God explains to me, 
or that God will blame me for 
not understanding without him, 
exactly how the Death of Jesus 
Christ atoned for my sins : but 



— 95 — 



I do see that lie everywhere 

speaks of it as something real, 

something which he expects me 

to rely upon, even because he 

himself has revealed it to me. 
O, how much do we owe to 

the Incarnation of Jesus Christ ! 

What a vague, impalpable in- 
tangible thing, to the carnal, 

unspiritual, fallen man, is the 
wmm~mma*mmmm» — — — — ■ pure and glorious Divinity ! I 

-J No man, Scripture says, hath — 

seen God at any time ; but we know that he is, and that he is great and good, and Omnipotent and Om- 
nipresent. 

— 0. J. Vaughan, D.D. 



"FOR THEIR SAKES I SANCTIFY MYSELF." 

" I consecrate myself to be an atonement, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. I will suf- 
fer, the just for the unjust, and bring them nigh who were once far off, by my blood." Here Christ displays 

1 the exceeding; riches of his grace [ 
in his kindness towards us. He 
was not passive in the business, 
neither was he compelled. No 
man, says he, taketh my life 
from me ; I lay it down of my- 
self. He made himself of no 
reputation. It was, therefore, 
with him, a matter of the freest 
choice and of the fullest purpose. 
Nothing was accidental in the 
sufferings of Christ ; nothing was 
unforeseen ; he assumed our na- 
ture and entered our world for 
this very end. " The Son of 
Man came not to be ministered 
unto, but to minister, and to give 
his life a ransom for many." 
Observe the relativeness of the 
consecration : " For their sakes 
I sanctify myself" ; not his own. 
He had no sin of his own to ex- 
piate. He was stricken, smitten 
of God, and afflicted ; but he 



— 96 — 



was wounded for our transgres- 
sions ; he was bruised for our 
iniquities ; the chastisement of 
our peace was upon him ; and 
by his stripes we are healed. 
And he suffered not only for our 
sakes, but in our stead. His 
death was not only for our good, 
but for our redemption ; and we 
are expressly assured that he re- 
deemed us from the curse of the 
law, being made a curse for us. 
He was, therefore, a true and proper sacrifice for sin. 

" God commendeth his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." 

■' Was it for crimes that 1 had done, 

He groaned upon the tree ? 
Amazing pity, grace unknown, 

And love beyond degree." 

How precious and invaluable must Christ have deemed our sanctification, since he considered nothing 
too great or expensive to procure it for us. He well knew that unless we were delivered from the bondage 
of corruption, and renewed in the spirit of our minds, we could have no meetness for the inheritance of the 
saints in light, and must be incapable of enjoying or serving God here. This, therefore, was his aim in 

dying. " He gave himself for 
our sins, that he might deliver 
us from this present evil world, 
according to the will of God and 
our Father. It is the blood of 
Jesus that alone cleanseth us 
from all sin. There is no true 
holiness separate from the Cross. 

— Jay. 



THE WORK COMPLETED. 

It is not in darkness, whether 
outward or inward — not in dark- 
ness, but in light, in full, clear, 
unclouded light, that Jesus dies. 
To Jesus Christ alone was given 
that joy in dying which springs 
from the knowledge that all the 
ends of living and dying had 
been perfectly answered. Look- 
ing upon the career he had pur- 
sued, he could see not a single 



— 97 — 



blot nor blank space in the 
whole. — Wm. If anna, LL. D. 



"I HAVE FINISHED THE 
WORK." 

— John, xvii., 4. 

The work was the redemption 
of the church. It was no secu- 
lar purpose that brought him 
into the world. He came to be 
the Redeemer of sinners, and " in him we have redemption through his blood." For to him was the 
execution of this work intrusted ; "it was given him to do." Great undertakings require great qualifica- 
tions and abilities. And here was an enterprise to which all the angels in heaven, though they excel in 
strength, would have been found inadequate. But help was laid on One that is mighty. He had every 
thing that could fit him for the work. It was necessary that he should be human, and " the Word was 
made flesh, and dwelt among us." It was necessary that he should be innocent ; and " he did no sin " > 
" he was manifested to take away our sin, and in him was no sin." It was necessary that he should be 
voluntary, for there is no value in undesigned or constrained actions. It was necessary he should be di- 
vine ; his divinity was required to sustain his humanity, and to add value to his doings and sufferings ; and 
" in him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." 

He therefore fully accom- 
plished this work, and could say, 
" I have finished the work which 
thou gavest me to do." 

There is a, distinction between 
redemption and salvation. Sal- 
vation was not accomplished on 
earth, but in heaven. We are 
reconciled unto God by the death 
of his Son, but we are saved by 
his life. He is exalted at God's 
own right hand to be a Prince 
and a Saviour. This work he 
has not finished, but is still 
carrying on, and will be carry- 
ing on till all his people are 
glorified. Accordingly it is said, 
" They shall be saved," and, " he 
will appear the second time, 
without sin unto salvation." 
But redemption was his work 
on earth ; and he said when he 
expired, " It is finished " ; and 
he " entered into the holy place, 



— 98 — 



having obtained eternal redemp- 
tion for us." 

And his resurrection was an 
undeniable proof of the com- 
pleteness of his satisfaction ; it 
was, so to speak, a receipt in 
full, given to our Surety, to 
prove he had paid our debt, and 
set us free forever. 

" The deatli of Christ shall still remain 

Sufficient and alone." 

We want no other Mediator, 
no patron, but our advocate with the Father, who is the propitiation for our sins. We make mention of his 
righteousness only. — Jay. 



THOU ART THE CHRIST. 



Nothing should lead us to forsake Thee, thou Saviour of the world ! Thou givest a light which up- 
lifts, vivifies, and delights. In the midst of struggles Thou implantest peace in our hearts. In the depths 
of sorrows Thou givest a powerful and living consolation. At the approach of that death which is the 
terror of men, Thou fillest our souls with the firm and lively hope of reaching, by the path of 

Tby Cross, life with Thee in 
the glorious and invisible world. 
Thou art the Christ, the Son of 
the living God. 

— Merle D' Aubigne, D.D. 



IT IS FINISHED. 

The matchless life, the unpar- 
alleled death, are finished ! But, 
blessed be God, the influence of 
them has not yet ended, and will 
not end throughout eternity. 
" The ransomed of the Lord will 
return with songs and everlast- 
ing joy upon their heads ;" and 
the burden of their song and the 
source of their joy will be, the 
triumph of Jesus over death and 
the grave. Who can estimate 
the unending influence of his 
sinless life ( 

—B. II. Hill. 



— 99 — 



THE VOICE OF THUNDER. 

And the thunder rolled on, 

and the lightning that night 

cleft the great elm by the gate, 

so that in the morning it stood a 

scorched and blackened trunk. 

While it was an awful warning, 

it stood also like a parable of | 

mercy. 1 thought I could read the meaning of the Voice that thundered, by the Voice that spoke, "It is 
I, be not afraid" 

I thought how He had been scathed and bruised for us. I did not want that old scathed tree felled. 

For to me its great bare, blackened branches seemed to shelter the house like that " accursed tree " which 

had spread its bare arms one Good Friday night outside Jerusalem, and had pleaded not for vengeance, but 

for pity and for pardon. i 

— Mrs. Charles. 



FINISHED WORK. 

Finished work ! For Jesus dieth ; 

Woes and stripes and sufferings cease. 
Finished work ! For Jesus liveth, 

Leaving us His perfect peace. 
Finished work ! Oh, glorious foretaste ! 

Leaning then on Jesus' breast ; 
Finished work ! No tears, no sorrow, 

But eternal, heavenly rest. 

— F. A. L. 



— 100 — 



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